('ff.t  bv    J.<>  Chapman 


H 


LECTURES 


N 

PILGRIM'S    PROGRESS 


THE  LIFE  AND  TIMES 


JOHN    BTJIYAI, 


, 


REV.  GEORGE  B.  CHEEVER. 


SEVENTH  EDITION. 


NEW- YORK: 
EDWARD  WALKER,  114  FULTON  STREET. 

1847. 


Entered  according  to  the  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1844, " 
BY     WILLIAM     OSBORN, 

In  the  Clerk's  office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  Southern  District  of  Nevv-irork 


NEW-YORK : 
WILLIAM  OSBORN,  PRINTER, 


35 


PREFACE. 


THIS  work  attempts  to  trace  the  footsteps  of  a  great  circumnavi- 
gator in  the  Divine  Life,  somewhat  as  an  open  boat  might  follow 
in  the  wake  of  the  ships  of  Columbus  into  a  New  World.  And 
yet  it  is  not  new,  but  as  old  as  the  Grace  of  God  in  the  heart  of 
sinful  man ;  and  now,  so  many  have  crossed  the  sea,  and  prepared 
charts  and  maps  of  their  passage  for  the  use  of  others,  that  there 
is  scarcely  a*  league,  over  which  some  compass  has  not  been 
drawn,  or  into  which  some  fathoming  line  has  not  been  let  down  ; 
though  there  is  scenery  still  hidden,  and  there  are  depths  never 
yet  sounded,  nor  ever  will  be,  inasmuch  as  the  grace  of  God  in 
the  heart  of  man  is  unfathomable  ;  and  in  sailing  over  this  ocean, 
we  can  often  do  no  more  than  cry  out  with  the  Apostle  Paul,  O 
the  depths  !  There  is  always  much  that  is  peculiar  with  every 
individual  mind  in  crossing  this  sea  ;  and  likewise  in  following  the 
traces  of  so  experienced  and  wise  a  navigator  as  Bunyan,  every 
individual  will  find  something  new  to  remark  upon  ;  so  that  these 
lectures,  though  on  an  old  subject,  will  not  necessarily  be  found 
common-place,  or  monotonous,  or  superfluous. 

It  ought  probably  to  be  mentioned  that  a  former  essay  by  the 
author,  printed  in  the  North  American  Review,  has  been,  in  one 
or  two  of  these  lectures,  worked  up  anew.  A  greater  space  also 
is  occupied  by  that  division  of  the  work  on  the  life  and  times  of 
Bunyan,  than  was  originally  contemplated ;  but  in  the  Providence 
of  God,  Bunyan  himself,  in  his  own  lifetime,  furnished  as  much 
matter  for  profitable  meditation  and  instruction,  as  his  own  Pil- 
grim, in  his  beautiful  Allegory  Of  course  the  first  division  is 


% 

IV  PREFACE. 

more  particularly  biographical  and  historical ;  the  second  more 
meditative  and  expository. 

The  world  of  Christian  Pilgrims  may  in  general  be  divided  into 
two  classes,  the  cheerful  and  the  depressed  ;  those  who  have  joy 
in  the  Lord,  and  those  whose  joy  is  overborne  and  kept  down  by 
cares  and  doubts,  unbelief  and  many  sins,  fallings  by  the  way  and 
broodings  over  them.  Indeed,  there  is  a  sad  want,  in  our  present 
Christian  experience,  of  that  joy  of  the  Lord,  which  is  our 
strength  ;  and  to  give  the  reasons  for  this  would  by  itself  require 
a  volume.  There  must  be  more  of  this  joy,  and  it  must  be  more 
habitual,  if  the  church  of  Christ  would  be  strong  to  convert  the 
world,  would  be  prepared  to  teach  transgressors  the  way  of  the 
Lord,  so  that  sinners  may  be  converted  unto  him  ;  for  that  is  the 
meaning  of  the  Psalmist,  taking  what  is  individual,  and  applying 
it,  as  we  must,  to  the  church  universal,  as  the  source  of  her 
power. 

The  importance  of  this  joy  for  the  strength  of  the  church  is 
manifest  not  only  from  the  fifty-first  Psalm,  but  from  those  re- 
markable words  of  our  Blessed  Lord  to  his  disciples,  These  things 
have  I  spoken  unto  you,  that  my  joy  might  remain  in  you,  and 
that  your  joy  might  be  full.  The  Saviour's  own  joy !  What  a 
depth  of  blissful  meaning  is  contained  in  these  words,  as  the  por- 
tion of  his  people  !  It  is  not  a  doubting,  weak,  depressed  piety, 
that  is  here  recognized. 

And  yet  there  is  provision  in  the  same  gospel  for  those  who  do 
not  attain  to  this  joy.  There  is  mention  made  of  those,  whose 
hands  hang  down,  and  of  the  feeble  knees ;  and  the* arrangements 
made  in  the  gospel  for  the  sustaining  and  comforting  of  such  do 
show  that  there  will  always  continue  to  be,  more  or  less,  in  the 
Christian  race,  and  in  the  Christian  church,  hands  that  hang  down 
and  feeble  knees. 

Now  it  is  at  once  a  proof  of  the  wisdom  of  the  delineations  of 
Christian  character  in  the  Pilgrim's  Progress,  and  a  source  of  the 
usefulness  of  that  book  to  all  classes,  that  it  is  not  a  picture  of  ab- 


PREFACE.  V 

stract  perfections,  nor  drawn  from  any  one  extreme  or  exclusive 
point  of  view.  It  recognizes  both  divisions  of  the  Christian  world, 
of  which  we  have  spoken.  Nay,  it  recognizes  them  at  different 
times  in  the  different  experience  of  the  same  persons,  which  is  in 
accordance  with  the  examples  of  Scripture.  For  the  same  great 
saint  who  says,  I  have  rejoiced  in  the  way  of  thy  testimonies,  and, 
I  will  delight  myself  in  thy  statutes,  says  also,  a  few  verses  after- 
wards, My  soul  cleaveth  unto  the  dust,  and,  My  soul  melteth  for 
heaviness. 

There  is  in  general  more  of  this  cleaving  unto  the  dust,  than  of 
this  rejoicing  ;  but  it  is  not  always  to  be  concluded,  because  the 
soul  thus  seems  bound  up  in  dust  and  heaviness,  that  therefore 
there  is  nothing  of  the  Christian  life  in  it.  The  straight  lines  of 
light  and  joy  in  the  gospel  falling  into  such  a  dense  medium  of 
cares  and  anxieties  in  this  world,  are  refracted  and  broken,  so  to 
speak,  and  the  reflection  of  the  gospel  comes  from  troubled  waters, 
waters  ruffled  and  stirred,  and  not  from  still  lakes,  where  halcyon 
birds  of  calm  sit  brooding  on  the  surface. 

The  Christian  life  is  represented  as  a  race,  a  work,  a  labor,  a 
conflict,  a  warfare.  It  needs  a  strong,  constant,  unwavering  pur- 
pose, along  with  the  constant,  ever  present,  omnipotent  grace  of 
God.  God  is  our  all  in  all.  Christ's  strength  must  be  made  per- 
fect in  our  weakness.  So  David  says,  I  will  run  in  the  way  of 
thy  commandments  when  thou  shalt  enlarge  my  heart.  Here  is 
the  purpose,  I  will  run ;  here  is  the  way,  thy  commandments ; 
here  is  the  soul's  dependence,  when  thou  shalt  enlarge  my  heart ; 
and  here  is  the  source  of  power,  the  grace  of  God  in  the  heart,  in 
the  deep  heart.  To  this  Paul  answers,  Work  out  your  own  salva- 
tion with  fear  and  trembling,  for  it  is  God  that  worketh  in  you  both 
to  will  and  to  do.  Blessed  harmony  of  God's  working  and  man's 
working,  of  God's  grace  and  man's  obedienc?  ! 

The  Pilgrim's  Progress  is  constructed  throughout  on  this  divine 
harmony,  never  losing  sight  of  either  side  of  the  arrangement.  So 
must  our  individual  progress  through  life,  in  grace,  be  of  the  same 


VI  PREFACE. 

divine  harmony,  a  perpetual  strife  on  our  part,  and  God  striving  in 
us.  So  says  Paul  of  this  progress  in  his  own  person,  Whereunto 
I  also  labor,  striving  according  to  his  working,  which  worketh  in 
me  mightily.  When  these  two  things  are  kept  together,  then 
there  is  joy,  joy  even  amidst  great  trials  and  discouragements. 
'Because  we  are  cast  down,  it  is  not  necessary  to  be  destroyed'; 
and  the  same  Apostle  who  says,  Rejoice  in  the  Lord  alway,  says 
also,  with  Barnabas,  who  was  the  son  of  consolation,  That  we 
must  through  much  tribulation  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God. 

In  all  things  we  are  brought  to  Christ,  and  thrown  upon  him  ; 
and  this  is  the  sweet  voice  of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress,  as  of  the  gos- 
pel, Come  unto  me.  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I 
will  give  you  rest.  Our  consolation  amidst  our  distresses  is  this, 
that  we  have  not  an  High  Priest  who  cannot  be  touched  with  the 
feeling  of  our  infirmities,  but  was  in  all  points  tempted  like  as  we 
are,  yet  without  sin.  Let  us  therefore  come  boldly  unto  the 
throne  of  grace,  that  we  may  obtain  mercy,  and  find  grace  to  help 
in  time  of  need.  And  unto  Him  that  is  able  to  keep  us  from  fafl- 
ing,  and  to  present  us  faultless  before  the  presence  of  his  glory 
with 'exceeding  joy,  to  the  only  wise  God  our  Saviour,  be  glory 
and  majesty,  dominion  and  power,  both  now  and  ever.  Amen. 


CONTENTS. 


Pageu 

BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES,      .  1 

BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS,                                            .  41 

BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION,      -                  •  A«                                -  89 

BUNYAN  IN  PRISON,                                                         -           -  129 
PROVIDENCE,   GRACE,  AND   GENIUS,  IN  BUNYAN  AND  THE 

PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS,    -  173 

THE  CITY  OF  DESTRUCTION  AND  SLOUGH  OF  DESPON .',  217 

CHRISTIAN  IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  INTERPRETER,          -  249 

CHRISTIAN  ON  THE  HILL  DIFFICULTY,        -•                    -  277 
CHRISTIAN'S  FIGHT  WITH  APOLLYON    IN  THE  VALLEY  OF 

HUMILIATION,        *;*;  299 
CHRISTIAN  IN  THE  VALLEY  OF  THE  SHADOW  OF  DEATH,  331 
CHRISTIAN  AND  FAITHFUL  IN  VANITY  FAIR,  363 
DOUBTING  CASTLE  AND  GIANT  DESPAIR,         -                      .  391 
.  THE  DELECTABLE  MOUNTAINS,  AND  ENCHANTED  GROUND, 
WITH  THE  CHARACTERS  OF  IGNORANCE  AND  LITTLE- 
FAITH,  419 
THE  LAND  BEULAH  AND  THE  RIVER  OF  DEATH,         -  451 
CHRISTIANA,  MERCY,  AND  THE  CHILDREN,     -          -          A  433 


LECTURES 


ON   THE 


PILGRIM'S    PROGRESS. 


BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES. 


Historical  sketch  of  the  period. — Banyan's  contemporaries. — His  boyhood  and  con- 
victions  of  sin. — The  Providence  and  Grace  of  God  illustrated  in  his  life  and 
conversion. — The  characters  he  met  with. — His  Evangelist — His  spiritual  and 
intellectual  discipline. — Necessity  of  experimental  pieTy,  for  a  full  appreciation 
and  understanding  of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress. 

IF  a  man  were  to  look  about  the  world,  or  over 
all  the  world's  history,  for  that  one  of  his  race,  in 
whose  life  there  should  be  found  the  completest 
illustration  of  the  providence  and  grace  of  God,  he 
could  hardly  fix  upon  a  more  perfect  instance,  than 
that  of  John  Bunyan.  The  detailed  biography  of 
this  man  I  shall  not  attempt  to  present,  in  so  short 
a  sketch  as  that  to  which  I  must  of  necessity  con- 
fine myself.  But  there  are  points  in  his  life, 
where  the  Divine  Providence  is  unfolded  so  glori- 
ously, and  junctures  where  the  Divine  grace  comes 
out  so  clearly  and  so  brightly,  that  nothing  could 
be  more  simple,  beautiful,  and  deeply  interesting, 
than  their  illustration.  On  some  of  these  points  I 
shall  dwell,  premising,  in  order  to  a  right  view  of 
them,  a  rapid  but  important  glance  at  the  age  in 
which  he  lived. 

It  was  an  age  of  great  revolutions,  great  excite- 
ment, great  genius,  great  talent;   great  extremes 

1 


2  BUNYAN   AND    HIS    TIMES. 

both  in  good  and  evil;  great  piety  and  great  wick- 
edness; great  freedom  and  great  tyranny  and 
oppression.  Under  Cromwell  there  was  great 
liberty  and  prosperity ;  under  the  Charleses  there 
was  great  oppression  and  disgrace.  Bnnyan's  life, 
continuing  from  1628  to  1688,  embraces  the  most 
revolutionary  and  stirring  period  in  English  history. 
There  pass  before  the  mind  within  this  period  the 
oppressive  reign  of  Charles  First ;  the  characters  of 
Laud  and  Strafford ;  the  star  chamber,  and  the  king's 
tyrannical  men,  courts,  and  measures ;  the  noble  de- 
fence of  liberty  in  the  house  of  Commons ;  Harnpderi 
and  Pym ;  the  war  between  the  King  and  Parliament ; 
the  king's  defeat,  and  death  upon  the  scaffold  ;  the 
glorious  protectorate  of  Cromwell,  few  years,  but 
grand  and  prosperous,  a  freedom  and  prosperity 
united,  such  as  England  had  never  known;  then 
comes  the  hasty,  unconditional  restoration  of  a 
Prince  who  cared  'for  nothing  but  his  own  pleasure, 
the  dissolute,  tyrannical  reign  of  Charles  Second,  one 
of  the  most  promising,  lying,  unprincipled,  worth- 
less, selfish,  corrupted  and  corrupting  kings  that 
ever  sat  upon  the  throne  of  England ;  in  the  terribly 
severe  language  of  the  Edinburgh  Review,  a  king, 
"who  superseded  the  reign  of  the  saints  by  the 
reign  of  strumpets ;  who  was  crowned  in  his  youth 
with  the  Covenant  in  his  hand,  and  died  with  the 
Host  sticking  in  his  throat,  after  a  life  spent  in 
dawdling  suspense  between  Hobbism  and  Popery" ; 
a  king  and  a  reign,  of  which  one  of  the  grand  climac- 
terics in  wickedness  embraced  the  royal  murders  of 
the  noble  patriots  Russell  and  Algernon  Sydney; 
immortal  be  their  names,  and  honored  ever  be 


Christian  speaking  to  his  family. 


BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES.  3 

their  memories ;  a  reign  the  very  beginning  of 
of  which,  threw  John  Bunyan  into  prison,  and  pro- 
duced a  Bartholomew's  day  to  thousands  of  the 
conscientious  ministers  of  the  Church  of  England. 

The  king's  reign  from  the  time  of  the  restoration, 
began  in  contempt  of  all  religion,  and  continued  in 
debauchery  and  drunkenness.  Even  those  persons 
who  may  have  taken  their  views  of  the  history  of 
this  period  simply  from  the  pages  of  Hume,  may, 
if  they  will  look  narrowly,  gather  so  much  as  this. 
"Agreeable  to  the  present  prosperity  of  public  af- 
fairs," says  Hume,  "was  the  universal  joy  and  fes- 
tivity diffused  throughout  the  nation.  The  melan- 
choly austerity  of  the  fanatics  fell  into  discredit, 
together  with  their  principles.  The  royalists,  who 
had  ever  affected  a  contrary  disposition,  found  in 
their  recent  success  new  motives  for  mirth  and  gay- 
ety ;  and  it  now  belonged  to  them  to  give  repute  and 
fashion  to  their  manners.  From  past  experience  it 
had  sufficiently  appeared  that  gravity  was  very  dis- 
tinct from  wisdom,  formality  from  virtue,  and  hy- 
pocrisy from  religion.  The  king  himself,  who  bore 
a  strong  propensity  to  pleasure,  served,  by  his  pow- 
erful and  engaging  example,  to  banish  those  sour 
and  malignant  humors,  which  had  hitherto  engen- 
dered such  confusion.  And  though  the  just  bounds 
were  undoubtedly  passed,  when  once  returned  from 
their  former  extreme,  yet  was  the  public  happy  in 
exchanging  vices,  pernicious  to  society,  for  disor- 
ders, hurtful  chiefly  to  the  individuals  themselves 
who  were  guilty  of  them." 

This  means  simply  that  the  nation,  under  the  ex- 
ample of  the  king  and  the  royalists,  having  thrown 


4  BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

off  the  vices  and  vicious  restraints  of  gravity,  for- 
mality and  hypocrisy,  so  generally  pernicious  to 
society,  became  almost  entirely  abandoned  to  the 
more  individual  "disorders"  of  profligacy  and  sen- 
sual licentiousness.  They  were  happy  in  ex- 
changing "those  sour  and  malignant  humors"  for 
the  more  luscious  and  generous  qualities  of  sin. 
The  restoration,  says  Bishop  Burnet,  brought  with 
it  the  throwing  off  the  very  professions  of  virtue  and 
piety;  and  all  ended  in  entertainments  and  drunk- 
enness, which  overran  the  three  kingdoms. 

As  the  reign  began  so  it  continued ;  and  it  was  a 
period,  when  just  such  men,  as  God  had  been  pre- 
paring in  the  case  of  Bunyan,  were  most  needed ;  just 
such  men  also,  as  he  had  ready  in  Baxter,  Owen, 
Howe,  and  a  multitude  of  others,  perhaps  quite 
equal  in  piety,  though  not  so  distinguished  as  these. 
So  was  fulfilled  the  great  principle,  that  when  the 
Enemy  cometh  in  like  a  flood,  then  the  Spirit  of 
the  Lord  shall  lift  up  a  standard  against  him. 

As  to  the  measures  of  this  reign  for  the  destruc- 
tion of  religious  liberty,  with  which  more  especially 
we  are  now  concerned?  it  opened  with  what  is  called 
the  Corporation  Act,  by  which,  in  defiance  of  all  the 
king's  previous  stipulations,  all  persons,  whose  reli- 
gious principles  constrained  them  conscientiously 
to  refuse  conformity  to  the  established  Episcopal 
Church,  were  at  once  expelled  and  excluded  from 
every  branch  of  the  magistracy,  and  rendered  inca- 
pable of  serving  their  country  in  the  meanest  civil 
offices. 

Next  followed  the  memorable  statute  against  the 
Society  of  Friends,  by  which  upwards  of  four  thou- 


BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES.  5 

sand  persons  were  cast  into  prison  for  their  religious 
scruples,  and  treated  with  the  utmost  cruelty,  with 
even  a  savage  barbarity. 

In  the  second  year  of  this  reign,  1662,  came  the 
Act  of  Uniformity,  suppressing  by  force,  all  diver- 
sity of  religious  opinions,  imposing  the  book  of 
Common  Prayer,  and  reviving  for  this  purpose  the 
whole  terrific  penal  laws  of  preceding  reigns.  This 
was  to  take  effect  from  the  feast  day  of  St.  Bartho- 
lomew, in  1662;  the  day  of  a  former  well-known 
dreadful  massacre  of  Protestants  in  Paris,  and  other 
French  cities,  the  24th  of  August,  1572,  nearly  a  hun- 
dred years  previous ;  and  a  day,  on  which  more  than 
two  thousand  conscientious  ministers  were  silenced, 
ejected  from  their  pulpits,  and  thrown  into  persecu- 
tion and  poverty.  For  these  men  to  preach,  or  con- 
duct public  worship,  was  made  a  penal  offence 
against  the  state ;  and  among  these  men  are  such 
names  as  those  of  Owen,  Bates,  Manton,  Goodwin, 
Baxter  and  Howe  ;  towards  whom  that  very  cruelty 
was  enacted  by  the  Established  Church  of  England, 
which  in  the  case  of  the  Jewish  Church,  is  said  to 
have  filled  up  the  measure  of  its  crimes,  and  pre- 
pared the  Jewish  people  for  the  Divine  vengeance ; 
"  forbidding  the  apostles  to  speak  to  the  Gentiles, 
that  they  might  be  saved."  No  matter  how  holy,  nor 
how  eminently  useful  the  body  of  the  non-conform- 
ing clergy  might  be ;  the  act  would  have  passed, 
it  has  truly  been  said,  though  the  measure  had  in- 
volved the  eternal  misery  of  half  the  nation. 

Of  this  act  Hume  himself  says ;  (and  I  like  to 
take  authorities,  of  which  it  may  be  said,  our  ene- 
mies themselves  being  judges ;)  Hume  himself  says 


6  BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

that  in  it  the  Church  party  gladly  laid  hold  of  the 
prejudices  (the  conscientious  scruples)  which  pre- 
vailed among  the  Presbyterians,  "  in  order  to  eject 
them  from  their  livings.  By  the  Bill  of  Uniformity 
it  was  required  that  every  clergyman  should  be  re- 
ordained,  if  he  had  not  before  received  Episcopal 
ordination  ;  should  declare  his  assent  to  every  thing 
contained  in  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer;  should 
take  the  oath  of  canonical  obedience ;  should  abjure 
the  solemn  league  and  covenant ;  arid  should  re 
nounce  the  principle  of  taking  arms,  on  any  pre 
tence  whatsoever,  against  the  king.  This  bill  rein- 
stated the  Church  in  the  same  condition  in  which  it 
stood  before  the  commencement  of  the  civil  wars  , 
and  as  the  old  persecuting  laws  of  Elizabeth  still 
subsisted  in  their  full  vigor,  and  new  clauses  of  a 
like  nature  were  now  enacted,  all  the  king's  promises 
of  toleration  arid  of  indulgence  to  tender  consciences, 
were  thereby  eluded  and  broken."  The  same  his- 
torian observes  that  the  ecclesiastical  form  of  govern- 
ment, according  to  the  Presbyterian  discipline,  is 
"  more  favorable  to  liberty  than  to  royal  power;"  and 
hence  the  readiness  of  Charles  to  break  all  promises 
of  tolerance  which  he  had  made  for  the  gaining  of 
the  throne,  and  to  produce  an  iron  uniformity  of 
ecclesiastical  subjection,  in  which  he  might  break 
down  all  the  defences  raised  against  regal  encroach- 
ments. The  spirit  of  religious  liberty  always  has 
been,  and  ever  must  be,  the  world's  greatest  safe- 
guard against  the  oppression  of  political  tyranny. 

Two  years  after  this  statute  came  the  memorable 
Conventicle  Act,  in  1664.  It  was  found  that  these 
holy  clergymen,  though  banished  from  their  own 


BUNYAN   AND    HIS    TIMES.  7 

pulpits,  would  preach,  and  that  people  would  hear ; 
preach  any  where,  and  hear  any  where ;  in  dens 
and  caves  of  the  earth,  in  barns  and  private  houses, 
so  it  were  but  the  Gospel.     To  put  a  stop  to  this, 
and  to  extirpate  all  public  worship,  not  within  the 
walls  of  Episcopal  consecration,  the  barbarous  sta- 
tute of  a  preceding   reign  was  declared  in  force, 
which  condemned  all  persons  refusing  to  attend  the 
public  worship  appointed  by  the  State  to   banish- 
ment :  and  in  case  of  return,  to  death  without  bene- 
fit of  clergy.     It  was  then  enacted  that  if  any  per- 
son should  be  present  at  any  assembly,  conventicle 
or  meeting,  under  color  or  pretence  of  any  exercise 
of  religion  in  other  manner  than  is  allowed  by  the 
liturgy  or  practise  of  the  church  of  England  ;  or  if 
any  person  shall  suffer   any  such    meeting  in  his 
house,  barn,  yard,  woods,  or  grounds ;  they  should, 
for  the  first  and  second  offence,  be  thrown  into  jail 
or  fined ;  for  the  third  offence,  transported  for  seven 
years,  or  fined  a  hundred  pounds ;  and  in  case  of 
return  or  escape  after  such  transportation,  death, 
without  benefit  of  clergy !     Troops  of  horse  and 
foot  were  on  the  alert,  to  break  up  such  meetings  ; 
the  ravages  and  forfeitures  for  this  crime  of  religious 
worship  according  to  conscience, became  very  great; 
the  jails  were  filled  with   prisoners;  others  were 
transported  as  convicts ;  other  whole  families  emi- 
grated, informers  were  multiplied,  and  the  defence 
and  security  of  life,  liberty  and  property,  in  the  trial 
by  jury,  were  broken  down. 

Next  came  the  Great  Plague,  in  which  the  non- 
conformist clergy,  having  before  been  driven  from 
their  pulpits  by  power  of  persecution,  the  esta- 


8  BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

Wished  clergy  fled  from   theirs   through  fear   of 
death.     But  when  men  fled,  who  feared  death  more 
than  God,  then  those  men  entered  their  places, 
who  feared  nothing  but  God.     They  came,  those 
same  persecuted   and  silenced   clergy,  when  the 
court  and  parliament  had  removed  to  Oxford,  and 
the  hirelings  had  fled  from  their  flocks,  they  came, 
in  defiance  of  law  and  contagion,  and  ministered 
the  bread  of  life  to  pale  multitudes,  at  altars,  from 
which  they   would  have  been  driven  with  penal 
inflictions  in  the  season  of  health.     But  this  too 
must  be  stopped ;  and  therefore,  by  this  very  par- 
liament  sitting   in  Oxford,   through   fear   of  the 
plague  in  London,  and  to  shut  out  those  men,  who 
entered  with  the  Gospel  where  others  dared  not 
enter,  a  fresh  penal  law  was  enacted,  by  which, 
unless  they  would  take  an  oath,  that  the  Earl  of 
Southampton  declared   in   parliament   no   honest 
man    could    take,    all    non-conformist     ministers 
were  banished   five    miles  from   any  city,  town  or 
borough,  that  sent  members  to  Parliament,  and  five 
miles  from  any  place  whatsoever,  where  they  had, 
at  any  time,  in  a  number  of  years  past,  preached. 
This  savage  act  produced,  of  course,   great  suffer- 
ing, but  it  also  called  into  exercise  great  endurance 
and  patience,  for  Christ's  sake.      Ministers   who 
would  not  sacrifice  their  duty  to  God  and  their  peo- 
ple, and  who  had  to  be  concealed  at   a  distance, 
sometimes  rode  thirty  or  forty  miles,  to  preach  to 
their  flocks  in  the  night,  fleeing  again  from  their 
persecutors  before  the  dawn  of  day. 

In  1670,  the  barbarous  Conventicle  Act  was  re- 
newed with  still  greater  severity,  the  trial  by  jury 


BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES.  9 

in  case  of  offenders  was  destroyed,  no  warrant  to 
be  reversed  by  reason  of  any  default  in  the  form, 
persons  to  be  seized  wherever  they  could  be 
found,  informers  encouraged  and  rewarded,  and 
justices  punished,  who  would  not  execute  the  law. 
Archbishop  Sheldon  addressed  a  circular  letter  to 
all  the  bishops  of  his  province,  commanding  them 
to  take  notice  of  all  offenders,  and  to  aid  in 
bringing  them  to  punishment.  The  Bishop  of 
Peterborough  declared  publicly  concerning  this 
law,  that  "  It  hath  done  its  business  against  all 
fanatics,  except  the  Quakers ;  but  when  the  par- 
liament sits  again,  a  stronger  law  will  be  made, 
not  only  to  take  away  their  lands  and  goods, 
but  also  to  sell  them  for  bond-slaves."  The  ma- 
gistracy became,  it  has  been  truly  remarked, 
under  this  law,  an  encouragement  to  evil  doers, 
and  a  punishment  of  those  who  did  well. 

We  shall  pursue  no  further  the  history  of  poli- 
tical and  ecclesiastical  cruelty  in  this  arbitrary 
persecuting  reign.  It  is  enough  to  make  the  very 
name  of  the  union  of  church  and  state  abhorred 
in  the  mind  of  every  man,  who  has  a  spark  of 
generosity  or  freedom  in  his  composition.  Thus 
much  was  absolutely  necessary  to  illustrate  the 
life  of  Bunyan,  and  the  providence  and  grace 
of  God  in  the  age  were  God  placed  him.  It  was  an 
age  for  the  formation  and  intrepid  action  of  great 
minds  ;  it  was  also  an  age  for  the  development  of 
apostolic  piety,  and  endurance  of  suffering,  on  the 
part  of  men  and  ministers  who  chose  to  obey  God 
rather  than  man.  If  great  qualities  and  great 
capacities  of  virtue  existed,  there  were  great  flames 

2 


10  BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

to  try  them ;   sharp  tools  and  terrible,  to  cut  and 
polish  the  hidden  jewels  of  the  Saviour. 

Into  this  age  Bunyan  was  thrown  ;  a  great  pearl, 
sunk  in  deep  and  troubled  waters,  out  of  which 
God's  Spirit  would,  in  due  time,  draw  it,  and  place 
it  in  a  .setting,  where  its*  glorious  lustre  should 
attract  the  admiration  of  the  world.  There  were 
along  with  him  great  men,  and  men  of  great  piety, 
both  in  the  established  church  and  out  of  it.  He 
was  born  in  the  village  of  Elstow,  in  the  year  1628, 
thirty  years  after  the  death  of  Spenser,  twelve 
years  after  the  death  of  Shakspeare,  wrhen  Milton 
was  in  his  twentieth  year,  and  three  years  before 
the  birth  of  Dry  den.  Bunyan's  life  and  times 
were  also  Baxter's,  Baxter  being  but  thirteen 
years  the  oldest.  Bunyan  died  in  1688,  Milton  in 
1674,  Baxter  in  1691.  Owen  was  another  con 
temporary,  1616 — 1683.  John  Howe  was  another, 
born  1630.  Phillip  Henry  was  another,  born  1631. 
The  sweet  poet  George  Herbert  should  be  named  as 
another.  Matthew  Poole  was  another,  born  1623. 
Thomas  Goodwin  was  another,  born  in  1600.  Lord 
Chief  Justice  Hale  was  another,  born  in  1609.  Cud- 
worth  was  born  in  1617  ;  Henry  More  was  born  in 
1614,  and  died  in  1687,  a  year  before  the  death 
of  Bunyan ;  Archbishop  Usher  and  Bishop  Hall 
both  of  them  died  in  1656.  Taking  these  names 
together,  you  have  a  striking  picture  of  the  great, 
richness  of  the  age,  both  in  piety  and  genius  ; 
an  ascending  series  of  great  minds  and  good  men 
from  every  rank  and  party. 

But,  for  complete  originality  of  genius,  Bunyan, 
all    things    considered,  stands  foremost  amongst 


BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES. 


11 


them  all.  The  form  of  his  work,  the  nature  of 
the  subject,  and  its  creation  so  completely  out  of 
the  depths  of  his  own  soul,  unaided  by  learning 
or  art,  place  it  before  every  other  uninspired  pro- 
duction. Without  the  teaching  of  the  Spirit  of 
God,  the  genius  of  the  poet,  though  he  were 
Shakspeare  himself,  could  no  more  have  portrayed 
the  inward  life  of  the  soul  by  external  images 
and  allegories,  than  a  man  born  blind  could  paint 
the  moon  and  the  stars,  the  flowers,  the  forests, 
and  the  foliage.  The  education  of  Bunyan  was 
an  education  for  eternity,  under  the  power  of  the 
Bible  and  the  schooling  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  This 
is  all  that  the  pilgrims  in  this  world  really  need, 
to  make  them  good,  great,  powerful.  But,  set 
aside  the  Bible,  and  in  Bunyan's  education  there 
was  not  one  of  the  elements,  out  of  which  the 
genius  and  learning  of  his  contemporaries  gathered 
strength  and  richness.  Baxter  was  not,  any  more 
than  Bunyan,  a  child  of  the  universities ;  but 
Baxter's  intellect  was  sharpened  by  a  great 
exercise  with  the  schoolmen  ;  though,  even  if  this 
discipline  had  been  entirely  wanting  in  Baxter's 
development,  the  result,  on  the  whole,  might  not 
have  been  less  happy,  nay,  it  might  have  been 
richer.  He  would  not  have  preached  with  less 
fervor,  nor  less  scriptural  power  and  beauty  ;  and, 
though  he  might  not  have  been  so  keen  a  disputant, 
so  subtle  a  casuist,  yet  we  cannot  believe  that  his 
Saint's  Rest  would  have  lost  one  ray  of  its  heaven- 
ly glory.  Neither  would  the  Pilgrim's  Progress 
have  gained  in  its  beauty  or  its  truth, — it  would 
have  lost  in  both, — had  Bunyan's  soul  been  steeped 


12  BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

in  that  scholastic  discipline,  without  which,  the 
learned  Selden  used  to  say,  a  divine  knows  nothing 
logically  ;  just  as  if  the  Bible  were  not  the  best 
logic  in  the  world  !  Bunyan  never  heard  of  Tho- 
mas Aquinas,  it  is  true,  and  he  scarcely  knew  the 
philosophical  meaning  of  the  word  Logic  any  more 
than  a  breathing  child,  whose  pulse  beats  freely, 
knows  the  place  of  its  heart,  or  the  movement  of 
its  lungs  ;  but  Bunyan  wrote  the  Pilgrim's  Pro- 
gress, for  all  that ;  which,  indeed,  is  itself  the  sweet 
logic  of  Celestial  Love. 

Bunyan's  own  life  is  an  illustration  of  the 
guidance  of  Divine  Providence,  as  clearly  as  his 
Pilgrim's  Progress  is  a  delineation  of  the  work  of 
the  Divine  Spirit.  And  perhaps  the  Providence  of 
God,  in  the  education  of  this  man,  may  be  traced 
quite  as  distinctly  in  the  things  from  which  he 
shut  out  Bunyan's  soul,  in  order  to  prepare  him  for 
his  mission,  as  in  the  influences  by  which  he  sur- 
rounded him.  The  fountains  from  which  he  was 
prevented  drinking,  though  other  men  drank  to  the 
full,  and  almost  worshipped  the  springs,  it  was  bet- 
ter to  keep  sealed  from  his  soul,  if  the  pure  river 
of  the  water  of  life  was  to  flow  through  his  pages. 
This  peculiarity  of  his  training  fitted  him  to  be 
one  of  the  most  original  writers  in  the  world. 
Almost  the  only  books  Bunyan  ever  read,  at  least 
before  he  wrote  the  Pilgrim's  Progress,  were  the 
Bible,  the  Book  of  Martyrs,  a  copy  of  Luther  on 
Galatians,  and  two  volumes,  the  Plain  Man's  Path- 
way to  Heaven,  and  the  Practice  of  Piety,  which 
formed  the  marriage  portion  of  his  wife.  Fox's 
old  Book  of  Martyrs  had,  next  to  the  Bible,  a  great 
and  thrilling  power  over  Banyan's  spirit. 


BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES.  13 

Bunyan  has  given  an  account  of  his  own  con- 
version arid  life,  especially  of  the  workings  of 
the  grace  of  God,  and  the  guidance  of  his  provi- 
dence, in  a  little  work  entitled  Grace  Abounding 
to  the  Chief  of  Sinners.  It  is  powerfully  written, 
though  with  extreme  and  studied  plainness;  and 
almost  all  the  material  obtained  and  worked  into 
various  shapes  by  his  various  biographers  was 
gained  in  that  book.  It  is  deeply  interesting, 
and  in  following  its  delineation  I  shall  mark  some 
successive  particulars,  in  which  the  providence  and 
grace  of  God  are  clearly  illustrated,  and  which, 
on  a  comparison  with  the  Pilgrim's  Progress,  make 
it  evident  at  once  that  in  that  work  Bunyan  was 
following  his  own  experience,  and  that  in  such 
experience  God  was  so  ordering  all  things  as  to  fit 
Bunyan  for  that  work. 

As  you  read  the  Grace  Abounding  you  are  ready 
to  say  at  every  step,  Here  is  the  future  author  of 
Pilgrim's  Progress.  It  is  as  if  you  stood  beside 
some  great  sculptor,  and  watched  every  movement 
with  his  chisel,  having  had  his  design  described 
to  you  beforehand,  so  that  at  every  blow  some  new 
trait  of  beauty  in  the  future  statue  comes  clearly 
into  view.  In  the  Grace  Abounding  you  see  at 
every  step  the  work  of  the  Divine  Artist  on  one 
of  the  most  precious  living  stones,  that  ever  his 
wisdom  and  mercy  selected  in  this  world  to  shine 
in  the  glory  of  his  living  temple.  Nay,  to  lay 
aside  every  figure  but  that  employed  by  the  Holy 
Spirit,  you  see  the  refiner's  fire,  and  the  crucible, 
and  the  gold  in  it,  and  the  Heavenly  Refiner 
himself  sitting  by  it,  and  bending  over  it,  and 


14  BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

carefully  removing  the  dross,  and  tempering  the 
heat,  and  watching  and  waiting  for  his  own  perfect 
image.  How  beautiful,  how  sacred,  how  solemn, 
how  interesting,  how  thrilling  the  process ! 

But  with  Bunyan  it  begins  in  dreams.  Would 
you  think  it  ?  Indeed  it  is  no  illusion,  but  the 
very  beginning  of  God's  refining  work  on  Bunyan's 
soul.  The  future  dreamer  for  others  was  him- 
self visited  with  dreams,  and  this  is  the  first  point 
which  I  mark,  where  the  providence  and  grace  of 
God  are  illustrated  together ;  for  it  is  the  first 
point  which  Bunyan  himself  has  noted  down,  after 
describing  the  iniquity  of  his  childhood,  "  in  cursing, 
swearing,  lying,  and  blaspheming  the  holy  name 
of  God."  "  Yea,"  says  he,  "  so  settled  and  rooted 
was  I  in  these  things,  that  they  became  as  a 
second  nature  to  me  ;  the  which,  as  I  have  also 
with  soberness  considered  since,  did  so  offend  the 
Lord,  that  qyen  in  my  childhood  he  did  scare  and 
affrighten  me  with  fearful  dreams,  and  did  terrify  me 
with  fearful  visions.  For  often  after  I  had  spent  this 
and  the  other  day  in  sin,  I  have  in  my  bed  been 
greatly  afflicted  while  asleep,  with  the  apprehen- 
sions of  devils  and  wicked  spirits,  who  still,  as  I 
then  thought,  labored  to  draw  me  away  with  them, 
of  which  I  never  could  be  rid."  If  now  you  would 
have  a  glimpse  of  the  nature  of  these  terrifying 
dreams,  with  which  Bunyan's  sinful  childhood  was 
visited,  you  have  only  to  turn  to  your  Pilgrim's  Pro- 
gress, and  there  read  the  powerful  description  of 
the  last  sight  shown  to  Christian  in  the  House  of 
the  Interpreter.  There  you  have  the  manner  in 
which,  even  in  Bunyan's  childish  soul,  his  partly  awa- 


BUNYAN   AND    HIS    TIMES.  15 

kened  conscience,  with  his  vivid  imagination,  and 
the  word  and  the  Spirit  of  God,  wrestled  together. 
And  now,  before  leaving  this  point  for  another,  let 
me  call  your  attention  to  a  text  strikingly  illustra- 
tive of  it,  which  I  marvel  that  Bunyan  himself  had 
not  used,  to  which  none  of  his  biographers,  that  I 
am  aware  of,  save  one,  in  dwelling  upon  this  early 
experience,  have  referred,  but  which,  in  the  uncon- 
verted state  of  a  man,  made  afterwards  by  God's 
grace  so  signally  useful,  receives,  as  well  as  reflects, 
a  very  striking  illustration.  It  is  that  remarkable 
passage  in  Job,  where  the  Divine  Spirit  is  recount- 
ing the  discipline  of  God  with  his  creatures  for  the 
salvation  of  their  souls.  "  For  God  speaketh  once, 
yea  twice,  yet  man  perceiveth  it  not.  In  a  dream, 
in  a  vision  of  the  night,  when  deep  sleep  falleth  upon 
men,  in  slumberings  upon  the  bed,  then  he  openeth 
the  ears  of  men,  and  sealeth  their  instruction ;  that 
he  may  withdraw  man  from  his  purpose,  and  hide 
pride  from  man."  You  may  find  this  in  the  thirty- 
third  chapter,  and  the  whole  is  worthy  of  studying. 
Bunyan  not  only  in  his  childhood,  but  all  his  life, 
was  made  the  subject  of  such  discipline. 

The  next  point  which  I  shall  select  as  an  illustra- 
tion of  Divine  Providence  in  Bunyan's  life,  sets  us 
down  with  him  in  the  parliamentary  army,  as  a  sol- 
dier. It  was  probably  in  1645,  at  the  siege  of 
Leicester.  He  was  drawn  to  be  one  of  the  besie- 
gers ;  but  when  he  was  just  ready  to  go  upon  this 
perilous  service,  one  of  the  company  desired  to  go 
in  his  room;  "to  which,"  says  Bunyan,  "when  I 
had  consented,  he  took  my  place  ;  and  coming  to 
the  siege,  as  he  stood  sentinel,  he  was  shot  in  the 


16  BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

head  with  a  musket  bullet,  and  died."  At  this 
time  he  was  seventeen  years  of  age.  "  Here,"  says 
Bunyan,  "  were  judgments  and  mercy,  but  neither 
of  them  did  awaken  my  soul  to  righteousness ;  where- 
fore I  sinned  still,  and  grew  more  and  more  rebel- 
lious against  God,  and  careless  of  my  own  salva- 
tion." The  providence  of  God  in  Bunyan's  case 
was  wonderfully  similar  to  the  instances  recorded  in 
the  early  life  of  John  Newton ;  so  were  the  reck- 
lessness and  habits  of  profaneness,  in  which,  not- 
withstanding these  remarkable  interpositions,  he 
still  persisted. 

The  next  important  point  is  Bunyan's  marriage, 
at  the  time  of  which  event  he  could  not  have  been 
more  than  nineteen  years  of  age.  Upon  this  point 
we  would  not  lay  so  much  stress  as  to  say  with 
some,  that  it  constituted  Bunyan's  salvation ; 
but  it  was  certainly  a  great  step  towards  it.  Being 
with  a  woman,  who  had  received  from  a  godly 
father  a  religious  education,  it  gave  him  a  quiet, 
well-ordered  home  ;  and  through  the  instrumenta- 
lity of  two  excellent  books,  which  his  wife  brought  to 
him  as  her  only  marriage  portion,  (the  Plain  Man's 
Pathway  to  Heaven,  and  the  Practice  of  Piety,)  it 
begat  in  him  some  desires  to  reform  his  vicious 
life.  He  and  his  wife  would  read  together  in  these 
books,  and  then  young  Mrs.  Bunyan  would  bring 
her  own  recollections  of  the  godly  life  of  her 
father  in  aid  of  her  husband's  better  impulses. 
All  these  things  together  wrought  upon  him  for  an 
external  reformation  at  least,  and  produced  cer- 
tain church- going  habits  to  fall  in,  as  Bunyan 
says,  "  very  eagerly  with  the  religion  of  the 


Christian  meeting  Mr.  Legality. 


BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES.  17 

times ,  to  wit,  to  go  to  church  twice  a  day,  and 
that    too   with    the    foremost;    and    there   should 
very  devoutly  both  say  and  sing,  as  others  did,  yet 
retaining  my  wicked  life ;    but   withal  I  was    so 
overrun  with    the   spirit    of    superstition,    that    I 
adored,    and  that   with  great   devotion,  even    all 
things,  both  the  high  place,   priest,clerk,  vestment- 
service,  and  what  else,  belonging  to  the  church  ; 
counting  all  things  holy  that  wrere  therein  contained, 
and  especially  the  priest  and  clerk   most   happy, 
and  without  doubt  greatly  blessed."     "  This  con- 
ceit grew  so  strong  in  a  little  time  upon  my  spirit, 
that,  had  I  but  seen  a  priest,  though  never  so  sordid 
and  debauched  in  his  life,  I  should  find  my  spirit 
fall  under  him,  reverence  him,  and  knit  unto  him ; 
yea,  I  thought  for  the  love  I  did  bear  unto  them, 
supposing  they  were  the  ministers  of  God,  I  could 
have  laid  down  at  their  feet,  and  have  been  tram- 
pled on  by  them  ;  their  name,  their  garb  and  work 
did  so  intoxicate  and  bewitch  me." 

This  stage  in  Bunyan's  experience  is  exceedingly 
curious  and  instructive;  his  mind  seems  to  have 
been  in  that  state  of  bondage,  which  we  call  priest- 
ridden  ;  heartily  as  he  afterwards  hated  the  pope, 
it  would  not  have  taken  much,  at  this  time,  to  have 
carried  him  completely  over  to  Rome.  Had  he  lived  in 
our  day,  with  such  an  experience,  he  would  assured- 
ly have  made  what  some  might  be  disposed  to  call 
a  thorough-going  Puseyite.  Such  was  the  intoxica- 
ting effect  of  the  glare  of  religious  formalism  upon 
his  soul,  that  he  adored,  and  that  with  great  devo- 
tion, all  things  belonging  to  the  church.  Mark  the 
phraseology,  and  see  if  it  does  not  wonderfully  cha- 

3 


18  BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES 

racterize  some  in  our  day.  He  did  not  adore  God, 
but  the  church,  and  the  things  in  it,  and  the  forms  of 
it,  its  altar,  priest,  clerk,  vestments.  Never  was  des 
cribed  more  to  the  life  that  sentimental  mixture  of  su 
perstition  and  devotion,  which,  borrowing  something 
from  the  Spirit,  but  bewildered  and  carried  into  ec- 
stacies  by  the  beauty  of  religious  rites,  rests  in  and 
worships,  not  the  Saviour, but  the  form.  In  this  state 
of  mind,  if  Bunyan  had  seen  a  babe  baptized,  the  holy 
water  and  the  white  robe  of  the  priest,  and  the  sign  of 
the  cross  would  have  made  a  much  deeper  impres- 
sion on  his  soul,  than  the  name  of  Father,  Son  and 
Holy  Ghost,  named  upon  an  immortal  spirit.  And 
now  mark  the  intimate  connection  between  this 
ecstatic  reverence  for  priests  and  forms,  and  the 
belief  that  church  membership,  though  merely 
by  the  apostolical  succession  of  birth,  constitutes 
salvation.  Bunyan,  finding  in  Scripture  that  the 
Israelites  were  once  the  peculiar  people  of  God, 
concluded  that  if  he  could  be  found  to  have  sprang 
from  that  race,  his  soul  must  needs  be  happy.  He 
asked  his  father  about  it,  but  received  an  answer 
which  destroyed  all  his  hopes,  for  neither  he  nor 
his  family  were  of  the  lineage  of  Israel. 

It  has  been  conjectured  from  this  passage,  that 
Bunyan's  family  were  Gypsies,  and  that  this  was 
the  reason  why  he  asked  his  father  if  they  were 
not  descended  from  the  Israelites,  intending,  if  he 
found  they  were  so  descended,  to  have  considered 
himself  as  belonging  to  the  only  true  church,  and 
all  the  rest  of  the  world  as  entitled  only  to  God's 
uncovenanted  mercies,  that  is,  to  remediless  per- 
dition. There  is  no  knowing  to  what  extreme  this 


BUNYAN   AND    HIS    TIMES.  19 

state  of  mind  might  have  carried  Bunyan,  had  it 
lasted.     As   it   was,  it  gave  him  an  insight  into 
the  nature,  power  and  danger  of  formalism,  which 
nothing  else  could  have  taught  him,  neither  disci- 
pline nor  instruction.     For  all  this  while,  he  says, 
I  was  not  sensible  of  the  danger  and  evil  of  sin ; 
I  was  kept  from  considering  that  sin  would  damn 
me,  whatsoever  religion  I  followed,  unless  I  was 
found  in  Christ ;  nay,  I  never  thought  of  him,  nor 
whether  there  were  such  an  one  or  no."     There 
is  no  telling,  I  say,  what    might  have  been   the 
end  of  this  in  Bunyan's  soul  ;  but  now  comes, — 
A   fourth  point,  specially  illustrating  the  provi- 
dence and  grace  of  God,  namely,  a  sermon  which 
Bunyan  heard  on  the  holiness  of  the  Sabbath,  and 
the  evil  of  breaking  it.  This  ran  directly  athwart  one 
of  Bunyan's  besetting  sins  ;  for  notwithstanding  his 
thorough  Churchism,  he  says  he  took  much  delight 
in  all  manner  of  vice,  and  did  solace  himself  espe- 
cially therewith  on  the  Sabbath  day.    He  went  home 
from  this  sermon  to  his  dinner  with  a  great  load 
upon  his  conscience,  but    he   soon  shook  it   off, 
and  after  dinner  went  out  with  all  zest  to  his  sports 
and  gaming.     As  suddenly  as  a  miracle  his  con- 
victions returned  upon  him.     That  very  same  day, 
as  he  was  "  in  the  midst  of  a  game  of  cat,  and 
having  struck  it  one  blow  from  the  hole,  just  as 
I  was  about  to  strike  it  the  second  time  a  voice 
did    suddenly    dart    from    heaven  into    my  soul, 
which   said,   Wilt  thou  leave   thy  sins  and  go  to 
heaven,  or  have  thy  sins  and  go  to  hell  I     At  this 
I  was  put  to    an    exceeding   amaze ;    wherefore, 
leaving  my  cat  upon  the  ground,  I  looked  up  to 


20  BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

heaven,  and  was  as  if  I  had  seen  with  the  eyes  of 
my  understanding,  the  Lord  Jesus  looking  down 
upon  me,  as  being  very  hotly  displeased  with  me, 
and  as  if  he  did  severely  threaten  me  with  some 
grievous  punishment  for  these  and  other  ungodly 
practices." 

"  I  had  no  sooner  thus  conceived  in  my  mind, 
but  suddenly  this  conclusion  was  fastened  upon  my 
spirit,  (for  the  former  hint  did  set  my  sins  again  before 
my  face,)  that  I  had  been  a  great  and  grievous  sin- 
ner, and  that  it  was  now  too  late  for  me  to  look  after 
heaven;  for  Christ  would  not  forgive  me,  nor  par- 
don my  transgressions.  Then  I  fell  to  musing  on 
this  also ;  and  while  I  was  thinking  of  it,  and  fearing 
lest  it  should  be  so,  I  felt  my  heart  sink  in  despair, 
concluding  it  was  too  late;  and  therefore  I  resolved 
in  my  mind  to  go  on  in  sin :  for,  thought  I,  if  the  case 
be  thus,  my  state  is  surely  miserable  ;  miserable  if 
I  leave  my  sins,  and  but  miserable  if  I  follow  them ; 
I  can  but  be  damned,  and  if  I  must  be  so,  I  had  as 
good  be  damned  for  many  sins,  as  damned  for  few. 
Thus  I  stood,  in  the  midst  of  my  play,  before  all 
that  then  were  present ;  but  yet  I  told  them  nothing ; 
but  I  say,  having  made  this  conclusion,  I  returned 
desperately  to  my  sport  again.  The  good  Lord, . 
whose  mercy  is  unsearchable,  forgive  my  trans- 
gressions !" 

We  should  like  to  see  a  picture  by  the  hand  of  a 
master,  representing  Bunyan  in  the  midst  of  his 
game  of  cat,  arrested  thus  suddenly  by  the  fire  of 
conviction  flashing  up  in  his  soul,  and  thrown  into 
this  appalling  revery  in  the  midst  of  his  wondering 
companions,  with  the  thoughts  of  his  past  life,  and 


BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES.  21 

of  the  coming  judgment,  flying  through  his  awa- 
kened mind  swifter  than  the  lightning.  What  a 
scene  was  this,  and  how  little  could  Bunyan's  merry 
playmates  have  imagined  the  commotion  in  his  soul ! 
This  rapid  crowded  moment  must  have  been  as  a 
year  to  Bunyan ;  it  was  like  those  dreams,  in  which 
the  soul  lives  a  life-time  in  an  hour.  The  words 
that  were  kindled  with  such  power  in  Bunyan's  con- 
science, that  he  seemed  to  hear  them,  may  have 
been  spoken  to  him  in  the  very  sermon  to  which  he 
listened  in  the  morning.  But  returning  desperately 
from  this  dream  of  conscience  to  his  sport,  he  shook 
off  his  convictions,  resisted  the  Holy  Ghost,  and 
afterwards  fell  to  cursing  and  swearing,  and  playing 
the  madman  at  such  a  fearful  rate,  that  even  wicked 
people  were  astonished  at  him. 

On  one  occasion,  while  he  was  garnishing  his 
discourses,  as  he  termed  it,  with  oaths  at  the  begin- 
ning and  the  end,  an  abandoned  woman,  who  stood 
by,  severely  reproved  him,  and  told  his  companions 
to  quit  his  conversation,  or  he  would  make  them  as 
bad  as  himself.  This  strange  and  unexpected  re- 
proof of  the  bold  blasphemer  reached  the  child's 
heart,  that  still  lived  within  him.  He  stood  by  the 
shop-window,  and  hung  his  head  in  silence ;  and 
the  language,  in  which  he  has  told  the  effect  of  this 
rebuke  upon  him,  is  a  most  exquisitely  beautiful  re- 
velation of  the  simplicity  of  his  nature,  yet  undes- 
troyed  amidst  all  his  evil  habits.  "  While  I  stood 
there,"  says  he,  "  I  wished  with  all  my  heart  that  I 
might  be  a  little  child  again,  that  my  father  might 
Igarn  me  to  speak  without  this  wicked  way  of 
swearing."  He  thought  himself  so  accustomed  to 


22  BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

it  that  he  could  not  leave  it  off;  but  he  did  from  that 
moment. 

Bunyan's  character  was  not  unlike  that  of  Peter. 
They  seem  both  to  have  been  profane  swearers ; 
for  the  sudden  outbreak  of  this  devil  in  Peter,  at 
the  time  of  his  denial  of  Christ,  we  take  to  be  the 
reproduction  of  an  early  habit,  and  not  a  new  one, 
assumed  for  the  moment.  The  change  wrought 
by  divine  grace  in  the  character  of  Peter,  of  Bun- 
yan,  and  of  Christian  in  the  Pilgrim's  Progress, 
seems  marvellously  similar.  Southey  has  observed, 
apparently  by  way  of  some  excuse  for  the  arrest  of 
Bunyan  by  the  Establishment,  that  his  office  of 
preaching  might  well  be  deemed  incompatible  with 
his  calling.  Perhaps  the  poet  and  historian  had 
forgotten,  or  might  never  have  had  his  attention 
directed  to  a  passage,  which  he  could  have  found 
in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  descriptive  of  the 
early  teachers  and  preachers  of  Christianity  :  "  And 
because  he  was  of  the  same  craft,  he  abode  with 
them  and  wrought :  for  by  their  occupation  they 
were  tent-makers."  John  Bunyan  had  no  more 
need  to  be  ashamed  of  his  temporal,  than  of  his 
spiritual  calling  ;  nor  was  there  any  such  inconsis- 
tency between  the  two,  as  could  form  the  most 
distant  shadow  of  justification  to  a  persecuting 
hierarchy  for  forbidding  him  to  speak,  in  the  name 
of  Christ,  to  the  people.  Indeed,  had  the  tinker 
of  Bedford  been  pursuing  his  humble  occupation 
when  Matthew,  Peter  and  John  were  upon  earth, 
his  was  a  character  of  such  native  elements,  that 
he  might  have  been  chosen  as  one  of  their 
associates  in  the  work  of  the  primitive  Gospel 


BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES.  23 

ministry.  Our  Saviour  committed  the  Gospel  to 
unlearned,  but  not  to  ignorant  men ;  and  Bunyan, 
though  illiterate,  was  not  ignorant ;  no  man  is  so, 
who,  believing  with  the  heart  in  him  who  is  the 
Light  of  the  World,  beholds  Spiritual  Realities, 
and  acts  with  reference  to  them.  "  The  fears," 
says  Mr.  Coleridge  in  his  Aids  to  Reflection,  "  the 
hopes,  the  remembrances,  the  anticipations,  the  in- 
ward and  outward  experience,  the  belief  and  the  faith 
of  a  Christian,  form  of  themselves  a  philosophy  and 
a  sum  of  knowledge,  which  a  life  spent  in  the 
grove  of  Academus  or  the  painted  Porch,  could  not 
have  attained  or  collected." 

The  fifth  point  which  I  shall  mention  as  illustra- 
ting both  the  providence  and  grace  of  God  in 
preparing  Bunyan  for  his  great  work,  not  only  in 
converting  his  soul,  and  fitting  him  for  the  minis- 
try, but  in  preparing  him  for  the  painting  of  that 
beautiful  map  of  the  divine  life  in  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress,  is  the  succession  of  characters  he  met 
with  in  his  own  experience.  He  worked  his  way, 
you  are  well  aware,  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  out  of 
the  ignorance  and  vice  by  which  he  was  sur- 
rounded, against  much  opposition,  and  with 
very  little  aid  from  any  of  his  fellow  creatures. 
And  yet,  all  along  in  his  own  experience,  you  meet 
the  germ  of  those  characters  afterwards  so  fully 
developed,  so  vigorously  painted,  in  the  progress 
of  his  pilgrim.  His  mind  was  as  a  magic  lantern, 
or  camera  obscura,  through  which  every  form  and 
figure  that  fell  upon  it  was  revealed  again  in  glowing 
life  and  beauty  on  the  canvass.  The  first  that  I  shall 
name  is  his  own  Mr.  Legality,  who  however  after- 


24  BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

wards,  became  in  Bunyan's  words,  a  devilish  ranter, 
giving  himself  over  to  all  manner  of  sin  and  wicked- 
ness. Under  the  influence  of  this  man,  and  his  plea- 
sant talk  of  the  scriptures  and  the  matter  of  religion, 
Bunyan,  like  his  own  Christian  at  first  setting  out, 
went  to  Mount  Sinai.  "Wherefore,"  he  says,  "I 
fell  to  some  outward  reformation,  both  in  my  words 
and  life,  and  did  set  the  commandments  before  me 
for  my  way  to  heaven ;  which  commandments  I 
also  did  strive  to  keep,  and,  as  I  thought,  did 
keep  them  pretty  well  sometimes,  and  then  I 
should  have  comfort ;  yet  now  and  then  should 
break  one,  and  so  afflict  my  conscience;  but  then 
I  should  repent,  and  say  I  was  sorry  for  it,  and 
promised  God  to  do  better  next  time,  and  then 
got  help  again  ;  for  then  I  thought  I  pleased  God 
as  well  as  any  man  in  England.  Thus  I  con- 
tinued about  a  year;  all  which  time  our  neigh- 
bors did  take  me  to  be  a  very  godly  man,  a  new 
and  religious  man,  and  did  marvel  much  to  see 
such  a  great  and  famous  alteration  in  my  life  and 
manners,  and  indeed  so  it  was,  though  I  knew 
not  Christ,  nor  grace,  nor  faith,  nor  hope ;  for,  as 
I  have  well  since  seen,  had  I  then  died,  my  state 
had  then  been  most  fearful." 

"  But  I  say  my  neighbors  were  amazed  at  this 
my  great  conversion  from  prodigious  profaneness 
to  something  like  a  moral  life ;  and  truly  so  they 
well  might;  for  this  my  conversion  was  as  great, 
as  for  Tom  of  Bedlam  to  become  a  sober  man. 
Now  therefore  they  began  to  praise,  to  commend, 
and  to  speak  well  of  me,  both  to  my  face  and 
behind  my  back.  Now  I  was,  as  they  said,  be- 


BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES.  25 

come  godly ;  now  I  was  become  a  right  honest 
man.  But  oh,  when  I  understood  these  were  their 
words  and  opinions  of  me,  it  pleased  me  mighty 
well.  For  though  as  yet  I  was  nothing  but  a  poor 
painted  hypocrite,  yet  I  loved  to  be  talked  of  as 
one  that  was  truly  godly.  I  was  proud  of  my 
godliness,  and  .indeed  I  did  all  I  did,  either  to 
be  seen  of,  or  to  be  well  spoken  of  by  men  ;  and 
thus  I  continued  for  about  a  twelvemonth,  or 


more." 


Here  he  was,  according  to  Mr.  Worldly  Wise- 
man's directions,  under  Mount  Sinai.  But  now 
the  mountain  began  to  quake  and  thunder  at  a 
dreadful  rate,  and  flames  came  out  of  it,  and 
threatened  to  consume  him.  He  saw  more  of 
this  afterwards ;  "  But,  poor  wretch  as  I  was,"  he 
says,  "I  was  all  this  while  ignorant  of  Jesus 
Christ,  and  going  about  to  establish  my  own  right- 
eousness, and  had  perished  therein,  had  not  God  in 
mercy  showed  me  more  of  my  own  state  by  na- 


ture." 


At  this  very  time,  one  of  the  happiest  impulses 
and  most  remarkable  helps  he  ever  received  in  his 
spiritual  conflicts,  came  from  the  conversation  of  three 
or  four  godly  women  sitting  at  a  door  in  the  sun, 
and  talking  joyfully  of  the  things  of  God.  Bun- 
yan,  busy  at  his  occupation,  drew  near  and  listened 
like  a  child  to  all  they  said.  "Methought,"  he 
says,  "  they  spake  as  if  joy  did  make  them 
speak.  They  spake  with  much  pleasantness  of 
scripture  language,  and  with  such  appearance  of 
grace  in  all  they  said,  that  they  were  to  me 
as  if  I  had  found  a  new  world ;  as  if  they 

4 


26  BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

were  a  people  that  dwelt  alone,  and  were  not 
to  be  reckoned  among  their  neighbors."  These 
holy,  happy  women,  sitting  in  the  sun,  may  have 
dwelt  as  a  sun-lit  picture  in  Bunyan's  imagina 
tion,  till  the  vision  was  transfigured  into  that 
beautiful  incident  of  the  Three  Shining  Ones, 
who  met  Christian  at  the  Cross,  and  gave  him 
his  robe  and  his  roll.  There  wrere  other  inci- 
dents also,  and  lights  in  his  experience,  which 
contributed  to  form  that  picture ;  for  Bunyan's 
was  that  great  quality  of  genius,  as  well  as  of 
piety,  which  all  unconsciously  generalizes,  and 
then  combines  into  unity,  even  the  most  distant 
and  separate  events  and  experiences,  that  have  a 
secret  affinity,  that  spring  from  one  principle  or 
cause.  The  conversation  of  these  holy,  happy 
women,  who  evidently  possessed  an  experience, 
such  as  he  knew  nothing  of,  set  Bunyan  at  this  time 
to  questioning  his  own  condition,  and  gave  him  an 
insight  into  the  wickedness  of  his  own  heart,  and 
the  nature  of  true  religion,  and  produced  in  him  a 
longing  desire  after  its  blessedness,  such  as  he  never 
before  possessed.  The  state  and  happiness  of  these 
poor  people  presented  a  lovely  vision  to  him ;  and  at 
length,  after  much  conflict  and  inward  temptation, 
he  was  persuaded  to  break  his  mind  to  them,  and  tell 
them  his  condition.  And  here  he  found  sweet  sym- 
pathy and  guidance,  for  they  were  humble,  happy, 
kind-hearted  Christians,  and  as  soon  as  they  heard 
Bunyan's  recital  of  his  troubles,  they  ran  and  told 
their  pastor,  Mr.  Gifford,  about  him,  and  with  how 
much  joy,  we  may  well  conceive.  We  may,  per- 
haps, be  reminded  by  these  holy  happy  women  of 


BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES  27 

the  three  heavenly  maidens,  Prudence,  Piety  and 
Charity,  whose  discourse  with  Christian  was  so 
rich,  who  showed  him  the  rarities  of  the  House 
Beautiful,  and  who  placed  him  for  rest  in  a  large 
upper  chamber,  whose  windows  opened  to  the  sun- 
rising  ;  the  name  of  the  chamber  was  Peace,  where 
he  slept  till  break  of  day,  and  then  he  awoke  and 
sang. 

And  now  came  a  new  and  blessed  era  in  his  re- 
ligious life,  for  this  "  holy  Mr.  Gifford"  was  a  re- 
markable man,  a  man  of  deep  piety  and  joy,  and 
well  prepared,  by  his  own  spiritual  conflicts,  to  guide 
Bunyan  through  his.  This  man  took  Bunyan  under 
his  careful  charge,  and  invited  him  to  his  house, 
where  he  could  hear  him  converse  with  others  about 
the  dealings  of  God  with  their  souls.  This  man 
was,  indeed,  the  original  of  that  delightful  portrait 
of  Evangelist  in  the  Pilgrim's  Progress,  a  character 
drawn  from  real  life,  being  such  an  one  as  met  Bun- 
yan himself  on  his  wandering  way  from  the  City  of 
Destruction,  "  and  expounded  unto  him  the  way  of 
God  more  perfectly."  Of  this  man,  Bunyan  after- 
wards says,  "  I  sat  under  the  ministry  of  holy  Mr. 
Gifford,  whose  doctrine,  by  God's  grace,  was  much 
for  my  stability.  This  man  made  it  much  his  busi- 
ness to  deliver  the  people  of  God  from  all  those  hard 
and  unsound  tests,  that  by  nature  we  are  prone  to. 
He  would  bid  us  take  special  heed  that  we  took  not 
up  any  truth  upon  trust,  as  from  this  or  that,  or  any 
other  man  or  men  ;  but  cry  mightily  to  God  that  he 
would  convince  us  of  the  reality  thereof,  and  set  us 
down  therein,  by  his  own  Spirit  in  the  holy  word  ; 
for,  said  he,  if  you  do  otherwise,  when  temptation 


28  BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

comes,  if  strongly  upon  you,  you  not  having  received 
them  with  evidence  from  heaven,  will  find  you  want 
that  help  and  strength  now  to  resist,  which  once 
you  thought  you  had."  This,  Bunyan  says,  was 
"  as  seasonable  to  my  soul  as  the  former  and  latter 
rain  in  their  season."  The  Spirit  of  God  led  Bun- 
yan to  act  according  to  these  directions  ;  and  this 
was,  as  we  shall  see,  one  great  cause  of  his  wonder- 
ful power  in  the  scriptures. 

Into  this  Baptist  Church  of  Christ,  under  this 
holy  pastor,  Bunyan  was  received  in  the  year  1653, 
when  about  twenty-five  years  of  age.  And  now 
having  traced  him  to  this  point,  let  me  say  a  word 
in  regard  to  that  work,  the  Grace  Abounding,  from 
which  I  have  drawn  my  illustrations  of  Divine  Pro- 
vidence and  grace  in  Bunyan's  life.  I  cannot  close 
without  recommending  it  to  the  very  careful  perusal 
of  all,  who  would  have  a  deeper  relish  and  more 
thorough  understanding  of  the  beauties  of  the  Pil- 
grim's Progress.  It  is  a  marvellous  book,  and  can- 
not but  be  a  precious  book  to  every  soul  that  reads 
it  with  a  sober,  prayerful  spirit.  Its  pages  are,  next 
to  the  Pilgrim's  Progress,  invaluable.  It  is  con- 
densed, severe,  and  naked  in  its  style,  beneath  the 
pent  fire  of  Bunyan's  feelings,  and  the  pressure  of 
his  conscience,  forbidding  him  to  seek  for  beauty. 
He  says  of  it  himself;  "I  could  have  stepped  into  a 
style  much  higher  than  this,  in  which  I  have  here 
discoursed,  and  could  have  adorned  all  things  more 
than  I  have  seemed  to  do ;  but  I  dare  not.  God 
did  not  play  in  tempting  of  me ;  neither  did  I  play 
when  the  pangs  of  hell  caught  hold  upon  me,  Where- 
fore I  may  not  play  in  relating  of  them ;  but  be  plain 


BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES.  29 

and  simple,  and  lay  down  the  thing  as  it  was.  He 
that  liketh  it,  let  him  receive  it ;  and  he  that  doth 
not,  let  him  produce  a  better."  The  very  extreme 
plainness  of  this  work,  adds  to  its  power ;  never 
was  the  inward  life  of  any  being  depicted  with 
more  vehement  and  burning  language  ;  it  is  an  in- 
tensely interesting  description  of  the  workings  of  a 
mind  of  the  keenest  sensibility  and  most  fervid  ima- 
gination, convinced  of  guilt,  and  fully  awake  to  all 
the  dread  realities  of  eternity, 

Sometimes,  with  all  its  plainness  and  solemnity, 
it  is  almost  comic,  like  Luther's  own  humor,  as 
in  the  dialogues  of  Bunyan's  soul  with  the  Tempter. 
It  possesses,  indeed,  the  elements  of  a  great  spiri- 
tual drama.  The  Faust  of  Goethe  is  not  to  be 
compared  with  it  for  truth  and  depth  and  vividness. 
There  are  but  few  actors,  but  those  how  solemn, 
how  grand,  how  awful !  An  immortal  spirit, 
and  its  great  adversary  the  devil,  are  in  almost 
unceasing  conflict ;  but  such  a  stamp  of  reality, 
such  discrimination,  such  flashing  of  lights,  such 
crossing  of  the  swords  of  Michael  and  of  Satan, 
such  a  revelation  of  the  power  of  divine  truth,  and 
of  the  blessed  ministration  of  the  Spirit  of  God, 
you  can  find  nowhere  else  out  of  the  Bible.  It 
is  a  great  battle  ;  heaven  and  hell  are  contending; 
you  have  the  gleam  of  armor,  the  roar  of  ar- 
tillery, fire  and  smoke  and  blood-red  vapor,  in 
which  ofttimes  the  combatants  themselves  are  lost 
from  your  view. 

You  follow  with  intense  interest  the  movements 
of  Bunyan's  soul.  You  seem  to  see  a  lonely 
bark  driving  across  the  ocean  in  a  hurricane.  «By 


30  BUNYAN   AND    HIS    TIMES. 

the  flashes  of  the  lightning  you  can  just  discern 
her  through  the  darkness,  plunging  and  laboring 
fearfully  in  the  midnight  tempest,  and  you  think 
that  all  is  lost;  but  there  again  you  behold  her 
in  the  quiet  sunshine  ;  or  the  moon  and  the  stars 
look  down  upon  her,  as  the  wind  breathes  softly  ; 
or  in  a  fresh  and  favorable  gale  she  flies  across  the 
flying  waters.  Now  it  is  clouds  and  rain  and  hail 
and  rattling  thunder,  storms  coming  down  as 
sudden,  almost,  as  the  lightning  ;  and  now  again 
her  white  sails  glitter  in  heaven's  light,  like  an 
Albatross  in  the  spotless  horizon.  The  last  glimpse 
you  catch  of  her,  she  is  gloriously  entering  the 
harbor,  the  haven  of  eternal  rest ;  yea,  you  see 
her  like  a  star,  that  in  the  morning  of  eternity  dies 
into  the  light  of  Heaven.  Can  there  be  any  thing 
more  interesting,  than  thus  to  follow  the  perilous 
course  of  an  immortal  soul,  from  danger  to  safety, 
from  conflict  to  victory,  from  temptation  to  triumph, 
from  suffering  to  blessedness,  from  the  City  of  De- 
struction to  the  City  of  God ! 

Bunyan's  genius  I  had  almost  said  was  created 
by  his  piety ;  the  fervor  and  depth  of  his  religious 
feelings  formed  its  most  important  elements  of  pow- 
er, and  its  materials  to  work  upon.  His  genius  also 
pursued  a  pafli  dictated  by  his  piety,  and  one  that 
no  other  being  in  the  world  ever  pursued  before  him. 
The  light  that  first  broke  through  his  darkness  was 
light  from  heaven.  It  found  him,  even  that  being 
who  wrote  the  Pilgrim's  Progress,  coarse,  profane, 
boisterous,  and  almost  brutal.  It  shone  before  him, 
and  with  a  single  eye  he  followed  it,  till  his  native 
City  of  Destruction  could  no  longer  be  seen  in  the 


BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES.  31 

distance,  till  his  moral  deformities  fell  from  him, 
and  his  garments  became  purity  and  light.  The 
Spirit  of  God  was  his  teacher ;  the  very  discipline 
of  his  intellect  was  a  spiritual  discipline ;  the  con- 
flicts that  his  soul  sustained  with  the  powers  of 
darkness  were  the  very  sources  of  his  intellectual 
strength. 

Southey  called  the  experience  of  this  man,  in  one 
stage  of  it,  a  burning  and  feverish  enthusiasm. 
The  poet  Cowper,  in  one  of  his  beautiful  letters  to 
Lady  Hesketh,  after  describing  his  own  feelings, 
remarks,  "What  I  have  written  would  appear  like 
enthusiasm  to  many,  for  we  are  apt  to  give  that  name 
to  every  warm  affection  of  the  mind  in  others,  which 
we  have  not  experienced  in  ourselves."  It  would 
have  been  the  truth,  as  ^well  as  the  better  philoso- 
phy, if  Southey  had  said  that  the  Spirit  of  God 
was  preparing  Bunyan,  by  that  severe  discipline, 
to  send  forth  into  the  world  the  Pilgrim's  Progress. 
And  when  he  was  at  length  prepared  for  the  task, 
then  an  overruling  Providence  placed  him,  through 
the  instrumentality  of  his  own  enemies,  in  the  prison 
of  Bedford  to  accomplish  it. 

Bunyan's  imagination  was  powerful  enough,  in 
connection  with  his  belief  in  God's  superintending 
Providence,  to  array  his  inward  trials  with  a  sensible 
shape,  and  external  events  with  a  light  reflected 
from  his  own  experience;  hopes  and  fears  were 
friends  and  enemies,  acting  in  concert  with  them, 
all  things  he  met  with  in  the  world  were  friends  or 
enemies  likewise,  according  as  they  aided  or  op- 
posed his  spiritual  life.  He  acted  always  under  one 
character,  the  Christian  soldier,  realizing  in  his  own 


32  BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

conflicts  and  conquests  the  progress  of  his  own 
Pilgrim.  Therefore  his  book  is  a  perfect  reality  in 
oneness  as  a  whole,  and  in  every  page  a  book  not 
of  imagination  and  shadows,  but  of  realities  expe- 
rienced. To  those  who  have  never  set  out  on  this 
pilgrimage,  nor  encountered  its  dangers,  it  is  inte- 
resting, as  would  be  a  book  powerfully  written  of 
travels  in  an  unknown  romantic  land.  Regarded 
as  a  work  of  original  genius  simply,  without  taking 
into  view  its  spiritual  meaning,  it  is  a  wonder  to  all, 
and  cannot  cease  to  be.  Though  a  book  of  personi- 
fication and  allegory,  it  enchants  the  simplest  child, 
as  powerfully,  almost,  as  the  story  of  Aladdin  and 
his  lamp,  or  the  adventures  of  Sindbad  the  Sailor, 
or  the  history  of  Robinson  Crusoe  himself.  It  is 
interesting  to  all  who  have  any  taste  for  poetical 
beauty,  in  the  same  manner  as  Spenser's  Fairy 
Queen,  or  we  might  mention,  especially  for  the  simi- 
lar absorbing  interest  we  take  in  all  that  happens 
to  the  hero,  the  Odyssey  of  Homer. 

And  yet  its  interest  for  the  imagination  is  in  reali- 
ty the  smallest  portion  of  its  power;  and  it  will  be 
pleasing  to  the  imagination  just  in  proportion  as  the 
mind  of  the  reader  has  been  accustomed  to  inter- 
pret the  things  of  this  life  by  their  connection  with 
another,  and  by  the  light  that  comes  from  that  world 
to  this.  A  reader  who  has  not  formed  this  habit,  nor 
ever  felt  that  he  is  a  stranger  and  pilgrim  in  a  world 
of  temptations  and  snares,  can  see  but  half  the  beau- 
ty of  such  poetry  as  fills  this  work,  because  it  cannot 
make  its  appeal  to  his  own  experience ;  for  him  there 
is  nothing  within,  that  tells  more  certainly  than  any 
process  of  judgment  or  criticism  the  truth  and  sweet- 


BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES.  33 

ness  of  the  picture  ;  there  is  no  reflection  of  its 
images,  nor  interpretation  of  its  meaning  in  his 
own  soul.  The  Christian,  the  actual  pilgrim,  reads 
it  with  another  eye.  It  comes  to  his  heart.  It  is 
like  a  painting  meant  to  be  exhibited  by  fire-light ; 
the  common  reader  sees  it  by  day.  To  the  Chris- 
tian it  is  a  glorious  transparency ;  and  the  light  that 
shines  through  it,  and  gives  its  incidents  such  life, 
its  colors  such  depth,  and  the  whole  scene  such  a 
surpassing  glory,  is  light  from  eternity,  the  meaning 
of  heaven. 

I  repeat  it,  therefore,  as  truth  very  evident,  that  the 
true  beauty  of  the  allegory  in  the  Pilgrim's  Progress 
can  be  felt  only  by  a  religious  mind.  No  one,  in- 
deed, can  avoid  admiring  it.  The  honest  nature  in 
the  characters,  their  homely  truth,  the  simplicity  and 
good  sense  of  the  conversations,  the  beauty  of  the 
incidents,  the  sweetness  of  the  scenery  through 
which  the  reader  is  conducted,  the  purity  of  the 
language, 

"  The  humorous  vein,  strong  sense  and  simple  style, 
To  teach  the  gayest,  make  the  gravest  smile," 

all  these  things  to  the  eye  of  the  severest  critic  are 
beautiful,  and  he  who  loves  to  read  Shakspeare  will 
admire  them,  and  on  common  ground.  But  such  a 
reader,  in  respect  to  the  veiled  beauty  of  the  allego- 
ry, is  like  a  deaf  man,  to  whom  you  speak  of  the 
sweetness  of  musical  sounds.  Of  the  faithfulness 
with  which  Bunyan  has  depicted  the  inward  trials 
of  the  Christian  conflict,  of  the  depth  and  power 
of  the  appeal,  which  that  book  makes  to  the  Chris- 
tian's heart,  of  the  accuracy  and  beauty  of  the  map 

5 


84  BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

therein  drawn  of  the  dealings  of  the  Spirit  of  God 
in  leading  the  sinner  from  the  City  of  Destruction 
to  Mount  Zion  above,  he  knows  and  can  conceive 
nothing.  It  is  like  Milton's  daughters  reading  aloud 
from  his  Hebrew  Bible  to  the  blind  poet,  while  they 
could  only  pronounce  the  words,  but  were  ignorant 
of  the  sacred  meaning,  nor  could  divine  the  nature 
of  the  inspiration  it  excited  in  his  soul.  Little  can 
such  a  reader  see 

"  Of  all  that  power  of  prospect, 
Whereof  many  thousands  tell." 

And  I  might  go.on  to  express,  in  Wordsworth's  de- 
lightful poetry,  what  is  the  utmost  of  the  admiration 
excited  by  a  common  and  not  a  Christian  perusal 
of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress. 

"  The  western  sky  did  recompense  us  well 
With  Grecian  Temple,  minaret  and  bower; 
And  in  one  part  a  minster  with  its  tower 
Substantially  expressed. 

Many  a  glorious  pile 

Did  we  behold ;  fair  sights  that  might  repay 
All  disappointment.    And  as  such  the  eye 
Delighted  in  them ;  but  we  felt  the  while 
We  should  forget  them. 

The  grove,  the  sky  built  temple,  and  the  dome, 
Though  clad  in  colors  beautiful  and  pure, 
Find  in  the  heart  of  man  no  natural  home. 
The  immortal  mind  craves  objects  that  endure." 

Yes  !  it  is  perfectly  true  that  no  critical  admiration 
of  this  work,  overlooking  its  immortal  meaning,  sees 
any  thing  of  its  enduring  beauty ;  to  look  at  it 
aright,  we  need  a  portion  of  the  same  spiritual  faith, 
by  which  it  was  inspired,  by  which  only  it  can  be 
explained. 

"Who  scofls  these  sympathies 
Makes  mock  of  the  Divinity  within."  . 


BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES.  35 

In  the  light  of  eternity  this  book  is  as  far  superior 
to  a  common  poem  of  this  world,  or  of  man's  tem- 
poral being  and  affections,  as  the  soul  of  man  is  su- 
perior to  the  clod  it  inhabits.     Whatever  connects 
itself  with  man's  spiritual  being,  turns  his  attention  > 
to  spiritual  interests  and  realities,  and  rouses  his 
imagination  to  take  hold  on  eternity,  possesses,  the 
mere  philosopher  would  say,  a  dignity  and  power, 
with  which  nothing  else  can  be  invested.     Religion 
does  this.     In  her  range  of  contemplation  there  is 
truer  and  deeper  poetry,  than  in  the  whole  world, 
and  all  man's  being  else.     Dr.  Johnson,  in  his  life 
of  Waller,  advances  the  strange  opinion  that  devo- 
tion is  not  a  fit  subject  for  poetry,  and  in  his  dog- 
matical way  dedicates  some  space  to  an  inquiry  why 
it  is  so.     "  Contemplative  poetry,"  he  says,  "  or  the 
intercourse  between  God  and  the  human  soul,  can- 
not be  poetical.     Man,  admitted  to  implore  the  mer- 
cy of  his  Creator,  is  already  in  a  higher  state,  than 
poetry  can  confer.     The  essence  of  poetry  is  inven- 
tion ;  such  invention  as,  by  producing  something 
unexpected,  surprises  and  delights.     The  topics  of 
devotion  are  few,  and   being  few,  are  universally 
known,  but  few  as  they  are,  they  can  be  made  no 
more ;  they  can  receive  no  grace  from  novelty  of 
sentiment,  and  very  little  from  novelty  of  expres- 
sion.*'    In  this  sweeping  style  Johnson  proceeds 
with  criticism  that,  notwithstanding  our  deference 
for  his  great  intellect,  might  be  shown,  on  philoso- 
phical grounds,  to  be  as  poor,  as  the  assertions  are 
authoritative.     The  very  definition  of  poetry  is  a 
most  degrading  one ;  and  it  is  the  only  one  to  which 
the  reasoning  will  at  all  apply ;  the  whole  passage 


36  BUNYAN   AND    HIS    TIMES. 

shows  what  a  low  estimate  and  false  views  the  "wits" 
of  the  "Augustan  Age"  of  English  literature  pos- 
sessed of  the  greatest  of  all  intellectual  subjects. 
It  would  not  have  been  thought  that  a  being  who 
Could  admire  the  Pilgrim's  Progress  as  Johnson  did, 
would  have  reasoned  in  this  manner.  That  book 
itself  is  a  refutation  of  the  sentiment  quoted ;  so  is 
Cowper's  Task ;  so  is  Blair's  Grave ;  so  is  even 
George  Herbert's  little  volume  of  Devotional  Poetry. 
And  how  can  it  be  otherwise  ?  If  man  is  not  a 
mere  creature  of  this  world,  if  his  vision  is  not  re- 
stricted to  the  shadows  that  have  closed  around  him, 
if  he  is  connected  with  another,  an  eternal  world,  a 
world  of  higher  intelligences,  of  angels,  and  arch- 
angels, and  beings  free  from  sin; — a  world,  where 
the  Creator  of  this  and  of  all  worlds  manifests  his 
immediate  presence,  where  the  veil  of  flesh  will  no 
longer  be  held  before  the  eye  of  the  soul ; — and  if, 
by  the  revelation  which  God  has  made,  and  by  com- 
munion with  his  Maker  through  Him  who  is  the 
Way,  the  Truth  and  the  Life,  man  becomes  ac- 
quainted by  inward  experience,  and  by  that  faith, 
which  is  the  soul's  spiritual  vision,  with  the  powers 
of  that  world  to  come, — then  will  those  far  seen 
visions,  and  all  the  objects  of  this  world  on  which 
light  from  that  world  falls,  and  all  man's  thoughts, 
affections  and  movements  in  regard  to  that  world, 
possess  an  interest,  and  wear  a  glory,  that  makes 
them  more  appropriately  the  province  of  the  poeti- 
cal imagination  than  any  other  subjects  in  the  uni- 
verse. And  the  poetry  of  this  world  will  rise  in 
magnificence,  in  proportion  as  it  borrows  or  reflects 
the  light  from  that. 


BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES.  37 

"  From  worlds  not  quickened  by  the  sun 
A  portion  of  the  gift  is  won ; 
An  intermingling  of  Heaven's  pomp  is  spread 
On  ground  which  British  shepherds  tread!" 

All  truth  to  the  humble  mind,  is  poetry :  spiritual 
truth  is  eminently  so.     We  long  to  witness  a  better 
understanding  of  its  sublime  laws,  an  acknowledg- 
ment of  its  great  fountain,  and  a  more  worthy  ap- 
preciation of  its  nature;  to  have  it  felt  and  ac- 
knowledged that  there  is  poetry  in  this  world,  only 
because  light  from  heaven  shines  upon  it,  because 
it  is  full  of  hieroglyphics,  whose  meaning  points  to 
the  Eternal  World,  because  man  is  immortal,  and 
this  world  is  only  the  habitation  of  his  infancy,  and 
possesses  power  to  rouse  his  imagination  only  in 
proportion  as  it  is  invested  with  moral  grandeur  by 
his  own  wonderful  destiny,  and  by  the  light  reflect- 
ed down  upon  it  from  the  habitation  of  angels.     All 
on  earth  is  shadow,  and  all  in  heaven  is  substance. 
Truly  as  well  as  feelingly  did  Burke  exclaim,  "What 
shadows  we  are,  and  what  shadows  we  pursue !" 
We  are  encompassed  by  shadows  and  flitting  appa- 
ritions and  semi-transparencies,  that  wear  the  simi- 
litude of  greatness,  only  because  they  are  near  us, 
and  interposed  between  our  vision,  and  the  world 
of  eternal  reality  and  light.     Man  of  the  world ! 
you  know  not  what  poetry  is,  till  you  know   God, 
and  can  hail  in  every  created  thing  the  manifesta- 
tion of  omnipresent  Deity !     Look  at  the  highest 
creations  of  the  art,  and  behold  how  they  owe  their 
power  over  the  human  soul  to  the  presence  of  the 
Idea  of  that  Being,  the  thought  of  whom  trans- 
figures the  movements  of  the  imagination  with  glo- 
ry, and  makes  language  itself  almost  divine  !    What 


38  BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

is  it  that  gives  to  Coleridge's  Hymn  before  Sunrise 
in  the  Vale  of  Chamouney,  the  deep,  unutterable 
sublimity,  that  awes  the  soul  into  worship,  and  suf- 
fuses the  eye  with  swelling  tears  1  What,  but  the 
thought  of  Him,  to  whose  praise  that  stupendous 
mountain,  with  its  sky-pointing  peaks  and  robe  of 
silent  cataracts,  rises  like  a  cloud  of  incense  from  the 
earth  1 — 

"Motionless torrents!  silent  cataracts ! 
Who  made  you  glorious  as  the  gates  of  heaven 
Beneath  the  keen,  full  moon  ?    Who  bade  the  sun 
Clothe  you  with  rainbows  ?    Who,  with  living  flowers, 
Of  loveliest  blue,  spread  garlands  at  your  feet? 
God !  let  the  torrents,  like  a  shout  of  nations, 
Answer !  and  let  the  ice-plains  echo,  God ! 
And  they  too  have  a  voice,  yon  piles  of  snow 
And  in  their  perilous  fall,  shall  thunder,  God !" 

There  is  a  spiritual  world,  and  it  is  a  world  of  light 
and  grandeur !  Man's  relation  to  it  is  the  greatest 
theme,  that  poet  or  philosopher  ever  yet  exercised 
his  powers  upon.  It  broods  over  him  like  the  day, 
a  master  o'er  a  slave, 

"  A  presence,  which  is  not  to  be  put  by !" 

The  truths  that  man  is  fallen,  exposed  because  of 
sin  to  the  just  indignation  of  God,  in  peril  of  his 
soul  forever,  the  object  of  all  the  stupendous  histo- 
ries and  scenes  of  revelation  recorded  in  the  Bible, 
surrounded  by  dangers,  and  directed  how  to  avoid 
them,  pointed  to  Heaven,  and  told  what  to  do  that 
he  may  enter  there,  and  watched  in  all  his  course 
with  anxiety  by  heavenly  spirits,  do,  rightly  consider- 
ed, throw  round  every  spiritual  movement  a  thrill- 
ing, absorbing  interest;  an  interest,  for  the  indivi- 
dual who  knows  and  feels  it  personally,  too  deep 
and  awful,  till  he  is  in  a  place  of  safety,  to  be  the 


BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES.  39 

subject  of  poetry.  He  can  no  more  command  at- 
tention to  the  sublimity  of  his  situation,  than  Lot, 
hurried  by  the  hand  of  the  angel  to  Zoar,  with  the 
storm  of  fire  rushing  after  him,  could  have  stood  to 
admire  burning  Sodom  and  Gomorrah.  It  was  not 
amidst  his  distressing  conflicts  with  the  Enemy, 
when  it  seemed  as  if  his  soul  would  be  wrested  from 
his  body,  that  a  thought  of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress 
came  in  upon  the  Author's  mind.  It  was  when  the 
Fiend  had  spread  his  dragon  wings  and  fled  for- 
ever, and  the  hand  came  to  him  with  leaves  from  the 
Tree  of  Life,  and  the  presence  of  God  gladdened 
him,  and  on  the  mountain  summit,  light  shone 
around  him,  and  a  blessed  prospect  stretched  be- 
fore him,  with  the  Celestial  City  at  its  close,  that 
that  sweet  vision  rose  upon  his  view.  To  the  Pil- 
grim, looking  back  from  a  safe  resting  place,  all  the 
way  is  fraught  with  poetical  recollections  and  asso- 
ciations. His  imagination  now  sees  a  spiritual  life 
full  of  beauty.  In  the  new  light  that  shines  upon 
him,  he  loves  to  retrace  it  again  and  again,  and  to 
lift  his  hands  in  grateful,  speechless  wonder  at  the 
unutterable  goodness  of  the  Lord  of  the  Way. 
He  is  like  Jacob,  sleeping  in  the  open  air  of  Padan 
Aram,  and  dreaming  of  Heaven.  Angels  of  God 
are  ascending  and  descending  continually  before 
his  sight.  His  are  no  longer  the 

"  Blank  misgivings  of  a  creature 
Moving  about  in  worlds  not  realized," 

but  the  rejoicings  of  a  weary  Pilgrim,  on  whose 
forehead  the  mark  of  Heaven  has  been  placed,  and 
who  sees  close  at  hand  his  everlasting  rest.  Once 
within  the  straight  gate,  and  in  the  holy  confidence 


40  BUNYAN  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

of  being  a  Pilgrim  bound  from  the  City  of  Destruc- 
tion to  the  City  of  Immanuel,  and  all  past  circum- 
stances of  trial  or  danger,  or  of  unexpected  relief 
and  security,  wears  a  charmed  aspect.  Light  from 
a  better  world  shines  upon  them.  Distance  softens 
and  lends  enchantment  to  the  view.  Proof  from  ex- 
perience, as  well  as  warnings  from  above,  show  how 
many  dangerous  places  he  has  passed,  how  many 
concealed  and  malignant  enemies  were  here  and 
there  lying  in  ambush  around  him,  and  in  how  many 
instances  there  were  hair-breadth  escapes  from  ruin 
There  were  the  Slough  of  Despond,  the  fiery  darts 
at  the  entrance  to  the  Wicket  Gate,  the  hill  Diffi- 
culty, that  pleasant  arbor  where  he  lost  his  roll  of 
assurance,  the  lions  that  so  terrified  him,  when  in 
the  darkness  of  evening  he  could  not  see  that  they 
were  chained  ;  there  was  that  dark  valley  of  the 
Shadow  of  Death,  and  that  dread  conflict  with 
Apollyon  before  it.  There  were  those  fearful  days 
and  nights  passed  in  the  Dungeon  of  the  Castle  of 
Giant  Despair,  and  the  joyful  escape  from  his  terri- 
tories. There  were  the  Land  Beulah,  and  the  De- 
lectable Mountains,  and  the  Enchanted  Ground, 
and  all  the  glimpses  of  the  Holy  City,  not  dream- 
like, but  distinct  and  full  of  glory,  breaking  in  upon 
the  vision,  to  last  in  the  savor  of  them,  for  many 
days  and  nights  of  the  blessed  pilgrimage !  Inge- 
nious Dreamer,  who  could  invest  a  life  of  such  reali- 
ties with  a  coloring  so  full  of  Heaven!  Who  can 
wonder  at  the  affectionate  sympathy,  with  which  a 
heart  like  Cowper's  was  wont  to  turn  to  thee  ! 

"And  e'en  in  transitory  life's  late  day 
That  mingled  all  his  brown  with  sober  gray, 
Revere  the  man,  whose  PILGRIM  marks  the  road, 
And  guide  the  PROGRESS  of  the  soul  to  God." 


BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS 


The  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death  in  Bunyan'  a  experience. — Blasphemous  sug- 
gestions of  Satan. — Bunyan's  meeting  with  Luther. — Conflict  of  scripture  with 
scripture  in  his  mind. — The  fiery  darts  of  the  Wicked  One. — Power  of  conscience 
by  the  aid  of  memory. — Bunyart'a  intense  study  of  the  Bible. — Secret  of  his 
power  in  preaching. — Of  the  purity  and  simplicity  of  his  style. — Bunyan's  call  to 
the  ministry. — Existence  and  agency  of  Satan  as  the  Tempter  and  Adversary 
of  Mankind. 

WE  come  now  to  a  great  and  important  sub- 
ject, Bunyan's  temptations.  In  the  midst  of  deep 
and  terrible  convictions  of  sin  he  received  great 
comfort  and  joy  on  hearing  a  sermon  preached 
on  the  love  of  Christ.  He  was  so  taken  with 
the  love  and  mercy  of  God,  as  he  says,  that  he 
could  scarcely  contain  himself  till  he  got  home. 
To  use  his  own  graphic  language,  "  I  .thought 
I  could  have  spoken  of  his  love,  and  have  told 
of  his  mercy  to  me,  even  to  the  crows  that  sat 
upon  the  ploughed  lands  before  me,  had  they  been 
capable  to  have  understood  me ;  wherefore  I  said 
to  my  soul  with  much  gladness,  Well,  I  would 
I  had  a  pen  and  ink  here ;  I  would  write  this 
down  before  I  go  any  farther  ;  for  surely  I  will 
not  forget  this  forty  years  hence."  But  now  very 
speedily  began  to  be  renewed  the  great  power  of 
inward  temptation  upon  him.  I  must  tell  the 


42  BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS. 

warning  he  had  of  it,  and  the  beginning  of  it, 
in  his  own  words.  "Now  about  a  week  or  fort- 
night after  this,  I  was  much  followed  by  this  scrip- 
ture ;  Simon,  Simon,  behold  Satan  hath  desired  to 
have  you ;  and  sometimes  it  would  sound  so  loud 
within  me,  yea,  and  as  it  were  call  so  strongly  after 
me,  that  once  above  all  the  rest,  I  turned  my  head 
over  my  shoulder,  thinking  verily  that  some  man 
behind  me  had  called  me ;  being  at  a  great  dis- 
tance, methought  he  called  so  loud ;  it  came,  as  I 
have  thought  since,  to  have  stirred  me  up  to  watch- 
fulness ;  it  came  to  acquaint  me  that  a  cloud  arid 
a  storm  was  coming  down  upon  me.  But  so 
foolish  was  I  and  ignorant,  that  I  knew  not  the 
reason  of  this  sound,  only  I  mused  and  wondered 
in  my  mind  that  at  this  rate,  so  often  and  so 
loud,  it  should  still  be  sounding  and  rattling  in 
mine  ears.  But  I  soon  perceived  the  end  of  God 
therein. 

"  For  about  the  space  of  a  month  after,  a  very 
great  storm  came  down  upon  me,  which  handled 
me  twenty  times  worse  than  all  I  had  met  with 
before  ;  it  came  stealing  upon  me,  now  by  one 
piece,  then  by  another ;  first,  all  my  comfort  was 
taken  from  me  ;  then  darkness  seized  upon  me  ; 
after  which  whole  floods  of  blasphemies,  both 
against  God,  Christ,  and  the  Scriptures,  were 
poured  upon  my  spirit,  to  my  great  confusion  and 
L~V  astonishment."  He  was  tempted  to  question  the 
very  being  of  God  and  of  Christ,  and,  in  burning 
language,  he  continues  the  description  of  these 
fearful  suggestions,  many  of  which  he  says  he 
dare  not  utter,  neither  by  word  nor  pen,  which 


BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS.  43 

nevertheless  for  the  space  of  a  whole  year  did,  with 
their  number,  continuance  and  fiery  force,  seize 
upon  and  overweigh  his  heart.  "  Now  I  thought, 
surely  I  am  possessed  of  the  devil;  again  I 
thought  I  should  be  bereft  of  my  wits  ;  for  in- 
stead of  lauding  and  magnifying  God  the  Lord 
with  others,  if  I  have  heard  him  spoken  of,  pre- 
sently some  most  horrible  blasphemous  thought 
or  other  would  bolt  out  of  my  heart  against  him ; 
which  things  did  sink  me  into  very  deep  despair, 
for  I  concluded  that  such  things  could  not  pos- 
sibly be  found  amongst  them  that  loved  God." 

The  provocations  by  which  he  was  beset,  are 
indeed  almost  too  terrible  to  be  spoken  of.  It  is  a 
wonder  that  he  was  kept  from  absolute  despair. 
He  was  especially  distressed  in  this  manner  when- 
ever he  attempted  an  attendance  on  any  of  the 
ordinances  of  God,  when  he  was  at  prayer,  when 
he  was  laboring  to  compose  his  mind,  and  fix  it 
upon  God  ;  such  distracting  temptations  would 
rush  upon  him  as  are  almost  inconceivable.  Some- 
times, in  the  midst  of  all  this,  his  heart  was  so 
hard,  that  if  he  could  have  given  a  thousand 
pounds  for  a  tear,  he  could  not  have  shed  one. 
Yet,  at  times  he  had  strong  and  heart-affecting 
apprehensions  of  God  and  divine  truth  ;  arid  then, 
oh  with  what  eagerness  in  such  intervals  of  relief 
did  his  soul  pour  itself  forth  with  inexpressible 
groanings  for  God's  mercy ;  his  whole  soul  in 
every  word.  And  then  again  the  Tempter  would 
be  upon  him  with  such  discouragements  as  these : 
"  You  are  very  hot  after  mercy,  but  I  will  cool 
you  ;  this  frame  shall  not  last  always  ;  many  have 


44  BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS. 

been  as  hot  as  you  for  a  season  ;  but  I  have 
quenched  their  zeal."  And  with  this  such  and 
such  who  were  fallen  off  would  be  set  before 
mine  eyes.  Then  would  I  be  afraid  that  I  should 
do  so  too  ;  but,  thought  I,  I  am  glad  this  comes 
into  my  mind  ;  well,  I  will  watch  and  take  what 
care  I. can.  "Though  you  do,"  said  Satan,  "I 
shall  be  too  hard  for  you ;  I  will  cool  you  in- 
sensibly by  degrees,  by  little  and  little.  What  care 
I,"  saith  he,  "  though  I  be  seven  years  in  chilling 
your  heart,  if  I  can  do  it  at  last  1  Continual 
rocking  will  lull  a  crying  child  asleep  ;  I  will  ply 
it  close,  but  I  will  have  my  end  accomplished. 
Though  you  be  burning  hot  at  present,  yet  I  can 
pull  you  from  this  fire  ;  I  shall  have  you  cold  before 
it  be  long." 

Was  ever  any  thing  more  natural  than  this  ? 
Was  ever  more  solemn  truth  couched  in  such  a 
dialogue,  of  which  the  very  sarcasm  and  humor  is 
awful  ?  It  was  the  taunting  of  the  devil ;  but  Bun- 
yan's  heart,  once  set  on  fire  by  divine  grace,  was 
not  so  easy  to  cool  as  Satan  at  this  time  thought  for. 
The  poor  Pilgrim  was  well  nigh  in  despair  under 
his  fierce  enemy,  but  he  kept  up  his  crying  and 
pleading  with  God.  Little  did  he  think  at  this  time 
how  gracious  and  powerful  a  friend  was  near  him, 
for  he  could  not  see  the  Heavenly  Refiner  watching 
over  this  child,  his  jewel,  guarding  the  furnace  and 
tempering  its  heat.  Neither  could  his  great  adver- 
sary see  him,  or  surely  he  would  have  left  his  de- 
vilish work  in  despair.  The  passage  reminds  me 
of  a  place  in  the  Pilgrim's  Progress,  of  which  it  is 
so  evidently  the  germ,  that  I  must  refer  you  to  it. 


V 


BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS.  45 

It  is  one  of  those  instructive  sights,  which  Christian 
was  indulged  with  and  instructed  by,  in  the  house 
of  the  Interpreter.     You  recollect  that  the  Inter- 
preter took  Christian  by  the  hand,  and  led  him  into 
a  place,  where  was  a  fire  burning  against  a  wall, 
and  one  standing  by  it  always  casting  much  water 
upon  it,  to  quench  it ;  yet  did  the  fire  burn  brighter 
and  hotter.    Then  said  Christian,  What  means  this  ? 
The  Interpreter  answered,  This  fire  is  the  work  of 
grace,  that  is  wrought  in  the  heart ;  he  that  casts 
water  upon  it,  to  extinguish  and  put  it  out,  is  the 
devil ;  but  in  that  thou  seest  the  fire  notwithstand- 
ing burn  higher  and  hotter,  thou  shalt  also  see  the 
reason  of  that.     So  he  had  him  about  to  the  back- 
side of  the  wall,  where  he  saw  a  man  with  a  vessel 
of  oil  in  his  hand,  of  which  he  did  also  continually 
cast,  but  secretly,  into  the  fire.     Then  said  Chris- 
tian, What  means  this  1    The  Interpreter  answered, 
This  is  Christ,  who  continually  with  the  oil  of  his 
grace    maintains  the  work  already  begun   in  the 
heart,   by  the    means    of  which,   notwithstanding 
what  the  devil  can  do,  the  souls  of  his  people  prove 
gracious  still ;  and  in  that,  thou  sawest  that  the  man 
stood  behind  the  wall  to  maintain  the  fire,  this  is  to 
teach  thee  that  it  is  hard  for  the  tempted  to  see 
how  this  work  of  grace  is  maintained  in  the  soul. 

You  will  also  read,  if  you  wish  to  see  another 
passage  of  great  beauty  that  grew  out  of  these 
dreadful  temptations,  the  account  of  Christian's 
fight  with  Apollyon  in  the  Valley  of  Humiliation. 
"  In  this  combat  no  man  can  imagine,  unless  he  had 
seen  and  heard,  as  I  did,  what  yelling  and  hideous 
roaring  Apollyon  made  all  the  time  of  the  fight ; 


46  BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS. 

he  spake  like  a  dragon  :  and  on  the  other  side, 
what  sighs  and  groans  burst  from  Christian's  heart. 
I  never  saw  him  all  the  while  give  so  much  as  one 
pleasant  look,  till  he  perceived  he  had  wounded 
Apollyon  with  his  two-edged  sword;  then  indeed 
he  did  smile  and  look   upward.     But  it  was  the 
dreadfullest  fight  that  ever  I  saw."     Ay  !  and  this 
is  so  vivid,  beause  the  Dreamer  himself  was  gazing 
back  upon  his  own  fearful  experience.     He  sees 
himself,  describes  himself,  as  in  this  Grace  Abound- 
ing, beneath  the  horrible  assaults  of  Satan,  dur- 
ing this  long  and    murky  year  of  temptation,  a 
year  passed  beneath  a  continual  storm  of  the  fiery 
darts  of  the  Wicked  One.    But  now  came  an  inter- 
val of  mercy  ;  a  hand  came  to  poor  exhausted  Bun- 
yan,  with  the  leaves  from  the  Tree  of  Life  for  his 
healing;  his  comfort  and  deliverance  he  always  ob- 
tained from  the  word  of  God,  which  would .  come 
into  his  soul  with  the  power  of  an  immediate  voice 
from  heaven.     "  The  Lord,"  he  says,  "  did  more 
fully  and  graciously  discover  himself  unto  me,  the 
temptation  was  removed,  and  I  was  put  into  my 
right  mind  again,  as  other  Christians  were."     The 
glory  of  God's  word  was  now  at  times  so  weighty 
upon  Bunyan,  that  he  was  ready  to  swoon  away 
with  solid  joy  and  peace.     This  was  the  Tree  of 
Life  after  the  conflict.     And  now  he  had  a  season 
of  great  delight  under  holy  Mr.  Gifford's  ministry, 
and  now  did  God  set  him  down  in  all  the  things  of 
Christ,  and  did  open  unto  him  his  words,  and  cause 
them  to  shine  before  him,  and  make  them  to  dwell 
with  him,  talk  with  him,  and  comfort  him.     And 
now  about  this  time,  what  was  next  to  the  very 


BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS.  47 

leaves  from  the  Tree  of  Life  for  Bunyan's  spirit, 
came  into  his  hands  by  God's  providence,  while  he 
was  longing  to  see  some  ancient  godly  man's  ex- 
perience, an  old  tattered  copy  of  Martin  Luther's 
Comment  on  Galatians ;  in  which  he  had  but  a  little 
way  perused,  before  he  found  his  own  condition  in  Lu- 
ther's experience  so  largely  and  profoundly  handled, 
as  if  the  book  had  been  written  out  of  his  own  heart. 
Oh  with  what  joy  did  Bunyan  in  the  midst  of  his 
temptations,  hail  this  trumpet  voice  of  the  old  Re- 
former! He  saw  now  that  he  was  not  alone.  It 
was  like  that  voice  which  his  own  Christian  heard, 
when  groping  in  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death, 
and  which  caused  his  heart  to  leap  for  gladness  to 
find  that  some  other  soul  that  feared  God  was  in 
that  Valley  with  him,  the  voice  as  of  a  man  going  be- 
fore and  crying,  Though  I  walk  through  the  Valley 
of  the  Shadow  of  Death,  I  will  fear  no  evil,  for 
Thou  art  with  me !  I  must,  said  Bunyan,  declare 
before  all  men  that  I  do  prefer  this  book  of  Martin 
Luther  upon  the  Galatians,  before  all  the  books, 
excepting  the  Holy  Bible,  that  I  ever  have  seen,  as 
most  fit  for  a  wounded  conscience. 

Now  was  Bunyan  in  great  blessedness  in  the 
love  of  Christ ;  but  it  lasted  only  for  a  little,  and 
then  again  the  Tempter  rushed  upon  him  with  a 
dreadful  violence  for  the  space  of  another  whole 
year,  in  which,  if  I  should  take  the  whole  even- 
ing,  I  could  not  describe  to  you  the  twinings 
and  wrestlings,  the  strivings  and  agonies  of 
Bunyan's  spirit.  Strange,  as  it  may  seem,  the 
temptation  presented  was  that  of  selling  Christ, 
sell  him,  sell  him,  sell  him,  sell  him,  as  fast  as  man 


48  BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS. 

can  speak,  which  tortured  Bunyan  as  upon  the 
rack,  and  against  which,  with  a  morbid  fear  lest  he 
should  consent  thereto,  he  bent  the  whole  force 
of  his  being  with  a  strife  unutterable.  At  length, 
one  morning  there  seemed  to  pass  deliberately 
through  his  heart,  as  if  he  were  tired  of  resisting 
the  wickedness,  this  thought,  "  Let  him  go  if  he 
will,"  and  from  that  moment  down  fell  Bunyan, 
"  as  a  bird  that  is  shot  from  the  top  of  a  tree  into 
great  guilt  and  fearful  despair." 

And  now  commenced  a  great  strife  of  scripture 
against  scripture  in  his  soul,  the  threatenings 
against  the  promises,  the  law  against  the  gospel,  a 
conflict  of  unbelief  and  terror,  in  which  he  was 
indeed  in  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death,  and 
not  a  glimpse  of  light  through  its  darkness.  Deep 
called  unto  deep  at  the  noise  of  God's  water-spouts ; 
all  the  waves  and  billows  seemed  to  have  gone 
over  him.  And  now,  like  a  man  seeking  to  escape 
from  a  labyrinth  of  fire,  in  which  he  was  bewildered, 
he  would  run  from  scripture  to  scripture,  from  this 
avenue  to  that  in  the  Bible,  but  found  every  door 
closed  against  him.  With  a  dreadful  perverse- 
ness  and  ingenuity  of  unbelief  under  the  power  of 
his  adversary,  who  seemed  now  indeed  to  have 
gotten  the  victory,  he  would  compare  his  case  with 
that  of  all  the  greatest  criminals  recorded  in  the 
Bible,  but  always  turned  every  comparison  against 
himself.  In  this  state  of  mind  he  met  with  that 
terrible  book,  the  despairing  death  of  the  Apostate 
Francis  Spira,  which,  he  says,  was  to  his  troubled 
spirit  as  salt  rubbed  into  a  fresh  wound ;  and  so 
it  must  have  been  inevitably,  such  a  picture  of  the 


BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS.  49 

sufferings  of  a  soul  in  despair  ;  and  that  sentence 
was  frightful  to  him,  "  Man  knows  the  beginning  of 
sin,  but  who  bounds  the  issues  thereof  1"  And  that 
scripture,  which  was  pursuing  his  soul  all  this  year 
like  one  of  the  avenging  furies,  fell  continually 
as  an  hot  thunderbolt  upon  his  conscience  :  "  For 
ye  know  how  that  afterwards,  when  he  would 
have  inherited  the  blessing,  he  was  rejected ;  for 
he  found  no  place  of  repentance,  though  he  sought 
it  carefully  with  tears." 

Now  he  is  in  the  midst  of  his  own  Death-Valley, 
beset  behind  and  before  ;  and  if  we  compare  the 
account  of  this  Valley  with  Bunyan's  own  expe- 
rience, we  shall  see  that  the  picture  is  simply  the 
elements  of  his  own  inward  sufferings  combined 
and  reorganized.  "  Thus  Christian  went  on  a 
great  while,  yet  still  the  flames  would  be  reaching, 
towards  him;  also  he  heard  doleful  voices  and 
rushings  to  and  fro,  so  that  sometimes  he  thought 
he  should  be  torn  to  pieces,  or  trodden  down 
like  mire  in  the  streets.  This  frightful  sight  was 
seen,  and  these  dreadful  voices  were  heard  by  him 
for  several  miles  together  ;  and  coming  to  a  place 
where  he  thought  he  heard  a  company  of  fiends 
coming  forward  to  meet  him,  he  stopt  and  began 
to  muse  what  he  had  best  to  do  :  sometimes  he  had 
•*  thought  to  go  back  ;  then  again  he  thought  he 
might  be  half  way  through  the  valley  :  he  remem- 
bered also  how  he  had  vanquished  many  a  danger 
already  ;  and  that  the  danger  of  going  back  might 
be  much  more  than  to  go  forward." 

"  One  thing  I  would  not  let  slip.  I  took  notice 
that  now  poor  Christian  was  so  confounded,  that 

7 


50  BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS. 

he  did  not  know  his  own  voice ;  and  thus  I  per- 
ceived it;  just  when  he  was  come  over  against  the 
mouth  of  the  burning  pit,  one  of  the  wicked  ones 
got  behind  him,  and  stept  up  softly  to  him,  and 
whisperingly  suggested  many  grievous  blasphemies 
to  him,  which  he  verily  thought  had  proceeded 
from  his  own  mind !  This  put  Christian  more  to 
it  than  any  thing  that  he  met  with  before,  even  to 
think  that  he  should  now  blaspheme  him  that  he 
loved  so  much  before  ;  yet,  if  he  could  have  helped 
it,  he  would  not  have  done  it.  But  he  had  not  the 
discretion  either  to  stop  his  ears,  or  to  know  from 
whence  those  blasphemies  came." 

Nothing  could  be  more  vividly  descriptive  than 
this  passage  from  the  Pilgrim's  Progress,  of  the 
state  of  Bunyan's  own  mind,  as  from  a  point  of 
calm  and  clear  observation,  he  afterwards  looked 
back  upon  it  in  light  from  Heaven.  His  obstinate 
unbelief,  his  entanglement  in  the  wrathful  places  of 
God's  word,  his  jealousy  against  all  consolation, 
and  his  holding  of  the  dagger  to  his  heart,  that 
he  had  sold  Christ,  these  things  in  the  Valley  of 
the  Shadow  of  Death,  were  as  much  the  work  of 
the  unseen  Devil,  as  the  crowds  of  blasphemous 
suggestions  that  were  shoaled  upon  him,  well-nigh 
driving  him  distracted.  And  now  you  see  his  own 
thoughtful,  deliberate,  well  considered  judgment  in 
^A  regard  to  that  state  of  mind.  "  He  had  not  the 
discretion  either  to  stop  his  ears,  or  to  know  whence 
those  blasphemies  came."  And  who  would  have 
had  1  Bunyan  possessed  a  very  strong  mind  ;  but 
let  any  man  be  thus  assaulted  of  the  Devil,  and 
see  if  he  will  possess  his  soul  in  patience  any  better 


BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS.  51 

than  Bunyan  did  ?  How  tender  was  his  conscience  ! 
How  fearful  of  offending  God  !  How  pierced  with 
anguish  in  the  thought  of  such  ingratitude  to  Christ ! 
And  how  fervid  and  powerful  his  imagination  at  work 
amidst  Eternal  Realities  ?  Ah !  here  were  materials 
for  Satan  to  work  upon  in  order  to  persuade  Bun- 
yan that  he  had  sinned  irrecoverably,  in  order  to 
make  him  endorse  against  himself  the  bill  of  blas- 
<  phemy  and  unbelief  presented  by  his  implacable, 
malignant,  hellish  adversary  !  And  he  did  endorse 
it,  in  all  the  anxiety,  trembling  and  agony  of  des- 
pair, he  did  endorse  those  bitter  dreadful  things 
against  himself;  but  it  was  a  forged  bill;  it  was 
known  in  Heaven's  Chancery ;  the  Saviour  himself 
denied  it. 

Upon  a  day  when  Bunyan  was  bemoaning  and 
abhorring  himself  in  this  abyss  of  misery,  therecame 
as  it  were  a  voice  from  Heaven,  in  a  sweet  pleasant 
wind,  that  like  the  wings  of  angels  rushed  past  him, 
with  this  question,  "Didst  thou  ever  refuse  to  be 
justified  by  the  blood  of  Christ  1"  and  Bunyan's 
heart,  in  spite  of  all  the  black  clouds  of  guilt  that 
Satan's  malignity  had  rolled  around  his  conscience, 
was  compelled  honestly  to  answer,  No.  Then  fell 
with  power  that  word  of  God  upon  him,  See  that 
ye  refuse  not  Him  that  speaketh.  This,  says 
Bunyan,  made  a  strange  seizure  upon  my  spirit ;  it 
brought  light  with  it,  and  commanded  a  silence  in 
my  heart  of  all  those  tumultuous  thoughts,  that  did 
before  use,  like  masterless  hell-hounds,  to  roar  and 
bellow  and  make  a  hideous  noise  within  me. 

Not  Milton  himself  could  have  described  this 
with  more  energy ;  nay,  you  may  apply  the  very  Ian- 


52  BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS. 

guage  of  the  great  Poet  of  Heaven,  Hell  and 
Satan;  for  the  thunder  now,  "winged  with  red 
lightning  and  impetuous  rage,"  had  for  a  season 
spent  his  shafts,  and  ceased  for  a  moment 

14  To  bellow  through  the  vast  and  boundless  deep  !" 

Yea,  says  Bunyan,  this  was  a  kind  of  check  for 
my  proneness  to  desperation ;  a  kind  of  threaten- 
ing of  me,  if  I  did  not,  notwithstanding  my  sins,  and 
the  heinousness  of  them,  venture  my  salvation  upon 
the  Son  of  God.  But  this  providence  was  so 
strange,  so  wonderful  to  Bunyan,  that  for  twenty 
years  he  could  not  make  a  judgment  of  it,  would 
scarce  dare  give  an  opinion ;  only  one  thing  he 
knew,  it  commanded  a  great  calm  in  his  soul ;  and 
another  thing  he  knew,  namely,  that  he  lay  not  the 
stress  of  his  salvation  upon  this  wonderful  interpo- 
sition, of  which  he  knew  not  what  to  say,  but  upon 
the  Lord  Jesus  in  tlie  promise. 

And  here  we  see  a  remarkable  trait  in  Bun- 
yan's  character,  and  that  is,  that  with  all  the 
strength  of  his  feelings  and  the  glowing,  restless 
power  of  his  imagination,  he  was  so  entirely  free 
from  fanaticism,  so  unwilling,  except  compelled,  to 
refer  his  experience  to  any  thing  like  personal 
miraculous  interpositions.  He  was  exceedingly 
cautious  to  rest  upon  nothing,  to  trust  in  nothing, 
but  for  which  he  had  the  warrant  of  God's  word. 
This,  as  we  have  seen,  was  what  holy  Mr.  GifFord, 
as  well  as  his  own  good  sense,  taught  him ;  but 
there  are  few  men  who  could  have  gone  through 
Bunyan's  experience,  and  not  come  out  fanatics,  cer- 
tainly none  without  the  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 


BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS.  53 

And  we  see  here  in  a  striking  manner  the  distinc- 
tion between  fanaticism  and  true  piety.  Fanaticism 
interprets  according  to  its  own  vagaries,  and  not 
according  to  God's  word;  fanaticism  leaves  the 
word,  and  rises  into  its  own  wild  spirit.  Fanaticism 
interprets  God's  providences  as  miracles  for  self; 
it  says,  God  is  working  miracles  for  me,  I  am 
the  favored  one  of  God,  I  have  a  special  mission 
from  God,  and  all  my  enemies  are  God's  enemies. 
Then  it  proceeds  to  say,  I  belong  to  the  true  church, 
and  all  that  do  not  go  with  me  are  of  God's  uncove- 
nanted  mercies,  heathen,  uncircumcised,  fit  only,  if 
I  can  get  the  power,  for  fire-and-faggot  application. 
This  indeed  is  the  convulsive,  Romish  stage  of 
fanaticism,  but  so  it  proceeds.  Self  and  intoler- 
ance, pride  and  cruelty,  are  its  constituent  elements. 
But  now  how  different  these  characteristics  of  Bun- 
yan ;  as  fearful,  almost,  of  daring  to  appropriate  any 
of  God's  miraculous  interpositions  in  his  own  behalf, 
as  he  was  of  hiding  himself  from  God  under  a  false 
refuge.  All  Bunyan's  hallucinations,  if  you  please 
to  call  them  such,  were  against  himself,  and  made 
him  remarkably  gentle  and  humble  ;  so  here  Satan 
overdid  his  own  work;  but  the  hallucinations  of 
fanaticism  are  all  in  behalf  of  self,  and  make  the  sub- 
ject of  them  proud,  self-righteous,  and  intolerant. 
Bunyan's  conscience  was  as  tender,  as  sensitive,  as 
quick  to  the  evil  and  pain  of  sin,  as  the  apostle  John's ; 
and  Bunyan  was  writing  bitter  things  against  him- 
self, when  he  was  full  of  love,  tenderness,  and  defe- 
rence to  others ;  but  fanaticism  is  always  writing 
proud  things  concerning  itself,  and  despising  others 
Two  men  went  up  into  the  temple  to  pray;  the  one 


54  BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS. 

a  Pharisee,  and  the  other  a  Publican.  The  Phari- 
see stood  and  prayed  thus  with  himself;  God,  I 
thank  thee  that  I  am  not  as  other  men,  extortioners, 
unjust,  adulterers,  or  even  as  this  Publican.  I  fast 
twice  in  the  week.  I  give  tithes  of  all  that  I  possess. 
I  belong  to  the  true  church.  And  the  Publican 
standing  afar  off,  would  not  lift  up  so  much  as  his 
eyes  to  heaven,  but  smote  upon  his  breast  saying, 
God  be  merciful  to  me  a  sinner ! 

I  have  said  that  these  blasphemies  and  unbelief 
were  Satan's  work,  and  not  Bunyan's ;  and  now  let 
us  see  another  material,  which  Satan's  devilish  in- 
genuity had  to  work  upon  in  Bunyan's  composition, 
indeed  in  the  very  constitution  of  art  our  minds. 
There  is  a  morbid  disposition  in  the  mind,  when  in 
an  anxious  state,  or  under  great  trials,  to  fasten  upon 
any  evil  imagination,  or  conjecture,  or  suggestion 
which  it  dreads  greatly,  arid  to  clasp  it  as  it  were, 
and  hold  to  it.  There  is  a  sort  of  feverish  state  of 
the  mind,  which  holds  these  phantasms,  as  a  fever 
does  in  the  body.  In  such  a  state,  evil  suggestions, 
though  rejected,  have  a  most  horrible  pertinacity  in 
cleaving  to  the  mind ;  and  the  more  the  mind  dreads 
thejn,  and  tries  to  avoid  them,  the  more  palpable 
they  become.  They  really  seem  like  fiends  pursu- 
ing the  soul,  shouting  over  the  shoulder,  hissing  in 
the  ear.  And  I  say  the  more  direct  and  intense  ef- 
forts a  man  makes  to  reject  and  avoid  them,  the 
more  palpable  and  fiend-like  they  become. 

This  is  in  part  our  very  constitution,  in  the  memo- 
ry as  well  as  imagination;  for,  let  a  man  try  to 
forget  any  dreadful 'thing,  of  which  he  hates  the  re- 
membrance, and  the  more  he  tries  to  forget  it,  the 


BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS.  55 

more  surely  he  remembers  it,  the  more  he  bodies  it 
forth,  and  every  thrust  he  makes  at  it  causes  it  to 
glare  up  anew,  reveals  some  new  horror  in  it.  Doubt- 
less, his  peculiarity  in  our  mental  constitution  is  des- 
tined to  play  a  most  terrific  part  in  the  punishment 
of  men's  sins  in  Eternity  ;  for  there  can  be  nothing 
so  dreadful  as  the  remembrance  of  sin,  and  nothing, 
which  men  will  strive  with  more  intense  earnest- 
ness to  hide  from  and  forget,  than  the  recollection  of 
their  sins;  and  yet  every  effort  they  make  at  such 
forgetfulness  only  gives  to  such  sins  a  more  terrible  ^ 
reality,  and  makes  them  blaze  up  in  a  more  lurid 
light  to  the  conscience.  Oh,  if  they  could  but  be  for- 
gotten !  But  the  more  intense  is  the  earnestness  of 
this  wish,  the  more  impossible  becomes  the  forgetful- 
ness,  the  more  terribly  the  dreaded  evil  stands  out. 
There  are  cases  even  in  this  life,  in  which  men  would 
give  ten  thousand  worlds,  if  they  possessed  them,  ^ 
could  they  only  forget ;  but  how  much  more  in  Eter- 
nity !  The  man  that  has  committed  a  secret  mid- 
night murder,  how  often,  think  you,  though  perhaps 
not  a  human  being  suspects  it,  would  he  give  the 
riches  of  the  material  universe,  if  he  had  them  at 
command,  could  he  but  forget  that  one  moment's 
crime.  But  it  is  linked  to  his  very  constitution, 
and  every  time  he  tries  to  cut  the  chain,  he  does 
but  rattle  and  rouse  the  crime  out  of  its  grave  into  a 
new  existence.  Did  my  hearers  ever  see  Allston's 
picture  of  the  bloody  hand  1  It  is  a  revelation  of  the 
power  of  sin  through  the  combined  agency  of  ima- 
gination, memory,  and  conscience — sin,  unrepented 
in  the  conscience,  unpardoned  in  the  soul. 

Now  all  this  Satan  knew  far  better  than  Bunyan. 


56  BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS. 

Was  not  the  lost  archangel's  own  soul  always  and 
obstinately  dwelling  upon  his  own  sins  ?  Could  he 
but  forget  his  fall,  his  once  blessed  state,  his  holi- 
ness, his  happiness,  it  would  be  almost  heaven  to 
him  !  But  no  !  he  might  fly  from  heaven,  and  fly 
to  the  utmost  limits  of  an  external  hell;  but  he 
could  not  fly  from  himself. 

"  Me  miserable  !    Which  way  shall  I  fly 
Infinite  wrath,  and  infinite  despair  ? 
Which  way  I  fly  is  hell ;  myself  am  hell ; 
And  in  the  lowest  deep  a  lower  deep 
Still  threatening  to  devour  me  opens  wide 
To  which  the  hell  I  suffer  seems  a  heaven." 

This  is  poetry,  of  the  highest,  sublimest  kind  ;  but 
it  is  not  fiction ;  it  is  not  deeper  poetry  than  it  is  truth, 
terrific  truth !  It  would  seem  as  if  Satan  disgorged 
upon  Bunyan  the  hell  of  his  own  soul  more  fully 
than  ever  he  did  upon  any  other  mortal.  Certainly, 
he  made  use  of  this  morbid  self-reproaching  disposi- 
tion of  Bunyan's  mind  to  the  utmost.  He  plied  him, 
vexed  him,  overwhelmed  him  with  devilish  sugges- 
tions, well  knowing  that  Bunyan  would  start  from 
them  as  if  an  adder  stung  him,  and  yet  that  they 
would  possess  a  sort  of  fascinating,  icy,  paralyzing 
power,  like  that  which  dwells  in  the  eye  of  a  rattle- 
snake. Now,  if  Bunyan  could  but  have  had  his  at- 
tention turned  away  from  the  eye  of  the  temptations, 
from  the  face  of  the  Tempter,  from  the  point  of 
almost  morbid  lunacy,  as  it  were,  the  horrid  charm 
would  be  broken.  If  at  this  time,  Bunyan's  mind 
could  have  been  strongly  arrested  and  filled  by  a 
presentation  of  Christ  crucified,  Satan  would  have 
found  himself  quite  unnoticed,  and  all  his  tempta- 
tions unnerved ;  but  he  succeeded  in  getting  the 


BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS.  57 

morbid  attention  of  Bunyan  fixed  on  himself,  and 
his  own  detestableness  and  diabolical  malignity 
and  blasphemy,  and  then  he  could  fasten  his 
serpent's  fangs  in  him,  and  nothing  but  Christ  by 
his  word  and  Spirit  ever  did  or  could  deliver  him. 
In  regard  to  these  temptations,  Bunyan  was 
sometimes  just  like  a  scared  child,  that  thinks  it 
sees  a  ghost,  or  like  a  timid  person  in  a  wood  by 
twilight,  that  sees  in  the  stump  of  a  tree  a  man 
couched  and  lying  in  wait,  and  instead  of  daring  to 
go  boldly  up  to  it,  to  see  what  it  is,  stands  shivering 
and  almost  dead  with  terror.  Who  has  not  realized 
this  in  his  own  experience,  timid  or  brave  1  And 
just  so,  Bunyan  did  not  dare  to  go  up  to,  and 
examine  and  look  in  the  face,  the  shocking  blas- 
phemies, accusations,  and  wrathful  passages,  that 
Satan  would  be  ever  thrusting  into  his  soul ;  but 
went  cowering  and  shivering,  and  bowed  down  as  a 
man  in  chains  under  the  weight  of  them.  There 
was  a  time  when  all  that  Satan  said  to  him  he 
seemed  morbidly  inclined  to  take  upon  trust ;  and 
if  it  were  a  fiery  passage  of  God's  word,  so  much 
the  worse  ;  for  instead  of  coming  up  to  it  as  a  child 
of  God  to  see  what  it  was,,  and  whether  it  were 
really  against  him,  he  fled  from  it  at  once,  as  from 
the  fiery,  flaming  sword  in  the  gate  to  Eden.  And 
nothing  can  be  more  curious,  more  graphic,  more 
affecting  in  its  interest,  more  childlike  in  its  sim- 
plicity, than  the  manner  in  which  Bunyan  describes 
the  commencement  and  progress  of  his  recovery  out 
of  this  state  of  condemnation  and  terror:  how 
timidly  and  cautiously,  and  as  it  were  by  stealth, 
he  began  to  look  these  dreadful  passages  in  the 

8 


58  BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS. 

face,  when  they  had  ceased  pursuing  him  ,  standing 
at  first  afar  off,  and  gazing  at  them,  and  then,  as  a 
child,  that  cannot  get  rid  of  its  fears,  slowly 
drawing  near,  and  at  length  daring  to  touch  them, 
and  to  walk  around  them,  and  to  see  their  true 
position  and  meaning,  but  always  conscious  of  their 
awful  power. 

If  ever  there  was  a  man  who  knew  to  the  full  the 
meaning  of  that  passage,  The  fiery  darts  of  the 
Wicked  One;  and  of  that,  The  word  of  God  is 
sharper  than  any  two-edged  sword,  piercing  even  to 
the  dividing  asunder  of  soul  and  spirit ;  it  was 
John  Bunyan.  You  cannot  possibly  tell,  except 
you  read  it  for  yourself,  the  conflicts  that  hi? 
soul  sustained  between  opposing  passages  of  scrip 
ture,  wielded  on  the  one  side  by  the  Spirit  of  God 
and  on  the  other  by  his  soul's  malignant  adver 
sary ;  the  blessed  Spirit  holding  out  some  sweei 
gracious,  comprehensive  promise,  and  then  Satan 
flashing  between  it  and  Buiiyan's  soul  the  gleaming 
sword  of  a  threat  to  keep  him  from  it ;  and  so,  as  1 
have  said,  the  swords  of  Michael  and  of  Satan  are 
thus  crossing  and  flashing  continually  in  this  pro- 
tracted and  fearful  conflict. 

There  were  two  passages  especially,  that  thus 
met  and  struggled  for  the  mastery ;  and  the  one 
was  that  sweet  promise,  "  My  grace  is  sufficient  for 
thee  ;"  and  the  other  that  most  tremendous  passage 
in  regard  to  Esau  selling  his  birthright,  and  after 
finding  no  place  of  repentance.  "  Oh,"  says  Bun- 
yan, "the  combats  and  conflicts  that  I  did  meet 
with !  As  I  strove  to  hold  by  this  word  of  pro- 
mise, that  of  Esau  would  fly  in  my  face  like  light- 


BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS.  59 

ning.  So  my  soul  did  hang  as  in  a  pair  of  scales, 
sometimes  up,  and  sometimes  down  ;  now  in  peace, 
and  now  again  in  terror.  And  I  remember  one 
day,  as  I  was  in  divers  frames  of  spirit,  and  consi- 
dering that  the  frames  were  according  to  the  nature 
of  several  scriptures  that  came  in  upon  my  mind,  if  .-<* 
this  of  grace,  then  I  was  quiet;  but  if  that  of  Esau, 
then  tormented.  Lord,  thought  I,  if  both  these 
scriptures  should  meet  in  my  heart  at  once,  I  won- 
der  which  of  them  would  get  the  better  of  me.  So 
methought  I  had  a  longing  mind  that  they  might 
come  both  together  upon  me  ;  yea,  I  desired  of 
God  they  might.  Well,  about  two  or  three  days 
after,  so  they  did  indeed ;  they  bolted  both  upon  me 
at  a  time,  and  did  work  arid  struggle  strongly  in  me 
for  a  while ;  at  last  that  about  Esau's  birthright  be- 
gan to  wax  weak  and  withdraw,  and  vanish,  and  this 
about  the  sufficiency  of  grace  prevailed  with  power 
and  joy.  And  as  I  was  in  a  muse  about  this 
thing,  that  scripture  came  in  upon  me,  Mercy  re- 
joiceth  over  judgment.  This  was  a  wonderment 
to  me,  yet  truly  I  am  apt  to  think  it  was  of  God, 
for  the  word  of  the  law  and  wrath  must  give  place 
to  the  word  of  life  and  grace  ;  because,  though  the 
word  of  condemnation  be  glorious,  yet  the  word  of 
life  and  salvation  doth  far  exceed  in  glory.  Also, 
that  Moses  and  Elias  must  both  vanish,  and  leave 
Christ  and  his  saints  alone." 

Now  we  may  call  this  a  conceit,  if  we  please, 
but  to  some  minds  this  use  of  scripture  is  inimi- 
tably sweet  and  beautiful.  Nor  can  there  be  any 
thing  more  beautiful  than  to  see  this  soldier  of 
Jesus  Christ  escaped  from  the  perils  of  the  con- 


60  BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS. 

flict,  sitting  down  to  trace,  with  so  calm  and  skilful 
a  hand,  and  a  heart  so  believing,  joyous  and  grate- 
ful, the  evolutions  and  currents  of  the  battle,  the 
movements  of  his  great  Commander  on  the  one 
side,  and  of  his  fierce  Adversary  on  the  other. 

rThe  consideration  of  Buriyan's  temptations  re- 
veals to  us  three  great  secrets  ;  the  secret  of  his 
deep  experimental  knowledge  of  the  power  of 
God's  word  ;  the  secret  of  his  great  skill  and  power 
in  preaching  ;  and  the  secret  of  his  pure,  idiomatic, 
energetic  English  style.  Every  step  he  took  in 
the  word  of  God  was  experimental.  The  Bible 
was  his  book  of  all  learning  ;  for  years  he  studied 
it  as  for  his  life.  No  bewildered  mariner,  in  a 
crazy  bark  on  an  unknown  sea,  amidst  sunken 
reefs  and  dangerous  shallows,  ever  pondered  his 
chart  with  half  the  earnestness.  It  was  as  if  life 
or  death  depended  on  every  time  he  opened  it,  and 
every  line  he  read.  The  scriptures  were  wonder- 
ful things  unto  him ;  he  saw  that  the  truth  and 
verity  of  them  were  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  ;  those  that  the  scriptures  favor,  they  must 
inherit  bliss  ;  but  those  that  they  oppose  and  con- 
demn must  perish  for  evermore.  "  One  sentence  of 
the  scripture  did  more  afflict  and  terrify  my  mind,  I 
mean  those  sentences  that  stood  against  me,  as 
sometimes  I  thought  they  every  one  of  them  did, 
than  an  army  of  forty  thousand  men  that  might 
come  against  me.  Wo  be  to  him,  against  whom 
the  scriptures  bend  themselves.  This  made  me, 
with  careful  heart  and  watchful  eye,  with  great 
fearfulness  to  turn  over  every  leaf,  and  with  much 
diligence  mixed  with  trembling,  to  consider  every 


BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS.  61 

sentence,  together  with  its  natural  force  and  lati- 
tude. Now  would  he  leap  into  the  bosom  of  that 
promise,  that  yet  he  feared  did  shut  its  heart 
against  him.  Now  also  I  would  labor  to  take  the 
word  as  God  hath  laid  it  down,  without  restraining 
the  natural  force  of  one  syllable  thereof.  Oh! 
what  did  I  now  see  in  that  blessed  sixth  of  John ! 
'  And  him  that  cometh  unto  me  I  will  in  no  wise 
cast  out.'  Oh  many  a  pull  hath  my  heart  had 
with  Satan  for  that  blessed  sixth  of  John !  A 
word,  a  word,  to  lean  a  weary  soul  upon,  that  it 
might  not  sink  forever  !  It  was  that  I  hunted  for! 
Yea,  often  when  I  have  been  making  for  the  pro- 
mise, I  have  seen  as  if  the  Lord  would  refuse  my 
soul  forever.  I  was  often  as  if  I  had  run  upon 
the  pikes,  and  as  if  the  Lord  had  thrust  at  me, 
to  keep  me  from  him  as  with  a  flaming  sword  !" 

Here  we  have  the  secret  of  Bunyan's  experi- 
mental knowledge  of  the  word  of  God ;  and  this, 
coupled  with  the  remembrance  of  the  tenor  of 
holy  Mr.  GifFord's  instructions  to  take  nothing  upon 
trust,  but  to  labor  to  be  set  down  by  the  Spirit  of 
God  in  the  word  of  God,  and  how  faithfully  Bun- 
yan  made  this  his  practice,  shows  us  how  he  came 
to  be  so  rooted  and  grounded  in  Divine  Truth,  so 
consummate  a  master  in  it,  in  its  living  beauty  and 
harmony.  He  was  led  from  truth  to  truth  by  the 
Divine  Spirit ;  every  part  of  the  gospel  was  thus  re- 
vealed unto  him ;  he  could  not  express  what  he 
saw  and  felt  of  its  glory,  of  the  steadiness  of  Jesus 
Christ,  the '  Rock  of  man's  salvation,  and  of  the 
power,  sweetness,  light  and  fitness  of  his  word.  It 
was  as  a  fire  and  a  hammer  in  his  own  soul,  burn- 


62  BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS. 

ing  and  beating.  It  was  food  and  nourishment 
to  his  spiritual  life,  and  a  clothing  of  majesty 
and  glory  to  his  intellect.  There  never  was  a 
being  more  perfectly  and  entirely  created  out  of 
the  scriptures. 

And  here  too,  in  his  intense  study  of  the  Bible, 
you  have  the  secret  of  the  purity  of  his  English 
style.  How  is  it  possible,  it  might  have  been 
asked,  that  this  illiterate  man,  familiar  with  none 
of  the  acknowledged  models  of  his  native  tongue 
can  have  acquired  a  style  which  its  most  skilful 
and  eloquent  masters  might  envy,  for  its  artless 
simplicity,  purity  arid  strength !  It  was  because  his 
soul  was  baptized  by  the  Spirit  of  God  in  its  native 
idioms ;  because  he  was  familiar  as  no  other  man 
of  his  age  was,  with  the  model,  the  very  best  model 
of  the  English  tongue  in  existence,  our  common 
English  Bible  !  Yes !  that  very  Bible,  which  some 
modern  infidel  reformers  would  exclude  from  our 
schools,  and  from  its  blessed  place  of  influence 
over  the  hearts  and  minds  of  our  children  !  The 
fervor  of  the  Poet's  soul,  acting  through  the  me- 
dium of  such  a  language  as  he  learned  from  our 
common  translation  of  the  scriptures,  has  produced 
some  of  the  most  admirable  specimens  in  existence 
of  the  manly  power  and  familiar  beauty  of  the  Eng- 
lish tongue.  There  are  passages  even  in  the  Grace 
Abounding,  which  for  fervid  ness  and  power  of  ex- 
pression might  be  placed  side  by  side  with  any 
thing  in  the  most  admired  authors,  and  not  suffer 
in  the  comparison.  Bunyan  is  not  less  to  be 
praised  than  Shakspeare  himself  for  the  purity  of 
his  language,  and  the  natural  simplicity  of  his 


BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS.  63 

style.  It  comes  even  nearer  indeed,  to  the  com- 
mon diction  of  good  conversation.  Its  idioms  are 
genuine  English,  in  their  most  original  state,  un- 
mingled  with  any  external  ornament,  and  of  a 
beauty  unborrowed  from  any  foreign  shades  of 
expression. 

Then  too,  Bunyan's  imagination,  his  judgment, 
his  taste,  every  faculty  of  his  mind  was  developed, 
disciplined  and  enriched  at  the  same  great  fountain 
of  the  Scriptures.  The  poetry  of  the  Bible  was  the 
source  of  his  poetical  power.  His  heart  was  not  only 
made  new  by  the  Spirit  of  the  Bible,  but  his  whole 
intellectual  being  was  penetrated  and  transfigured 
by  its  influence.  He  brought  the  spirit  and  power 
gathered  from  so  long  and  exclusive  a  communion 
with  the  prophets  and  apostles  to  the  composition 
of  every  page  of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress.  To  the 
habit  of  mind  thus  induced,  and  the  workings  of 
an  imagination  thus  disciplined,  may  be  traced  the 
simplicity  of  all  his  imagery,  and  the  great  power 
of  his  personifications.  The  spirit  of  his  work  is 
Hebrew ;  we  may  trace  the  mingled  influence  both 
of  David  and  Isaiah  in  the  character  of  his  genius; 
and  as  to  the  images  in  the  sacred  poets,  he  is 
lavish  in  the  use  of  them,  in  the  most  natural  and 
unconscious  manner  possible  :  his  mind  was  imbued 
with  them.  He  is  indeed  the  only  Poet,  whose 
genius  was  nourished  entirely  by  the  Bible.  He 
felt  and  thought  in  scripture  imagery. 

Now  here  are  great  lessons  for  all  our  minds. 
We  say  to  every  young  man,  whose  intellectual  as 
well  as  moral  habits  are  now  formed,  Do  you  wish 
to  gain  a  mastery  over  your  native  language  in  its 


64  BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS. 

earliest,  purest,  freshest  idioms,  and  to  command  a 
style,  in  which  you  may  speak  with  power  to  tl  i 
very  hearts  of  the  people  1  Study  your  Bible,  your 
English  Bible  ;  study  it  with  your  feelings,  your 
heart,  and  let  its  beautiful  forms  of  expression  en- 
twine themselves  around  your  sensibilities,  your  very 
habits  of  thinking,  no  more  to  be  separated  from 
them,  than  sensibility  and  thought  itself  can  be 
separated  from  your  existence.  We  stand  in  amaze- 
ment at  the  blessed  power  of  transfiguration  which 
the  Bible  possesses  for  the  human  intellect.  And 
yet  we  are  not  amazed,  for  the  Bible  is  the  voice 
of  God,  and  the  words  of  the  Bible  are  the 
words  of  God  ;  and  he  who  will  give  himself  up 
to  them,  who  will  feed  upon  them,  and  love  them, 
and  dwell  amidst  them,  shall  have  his  intellect 
and  his  soul  transfigured  with  glory  and  blessed- 
ness by  them.  Do  you  ask  for  experience  1  Do 
you  desire  life  1  Hear  our  Saviour.  "  The  words 
that  I  speak  unto  you,  they  are  Spirit  and  they  are 
Life !"  But  beware  you  let  no  mediator  come 
between  your  soul,  and  its  immediate,  electric 
contact  with  those  lively  oracles.  Beware  you 
let  no  church,  with  its  self-assumed  authority  of 
interpretation,  hang  up  its  darkening  veil  between 
your  soul  and  the  open  face  of  God  in  the  scrip- 
tures. Come  to  them  for  yourself.  Say  to  yourself, 
This  is  my  possession,  and  no  church,  and  no 
priest,  and  no  power  in  the  universe  shall  wrest 
it  from  me.  This  is  my  God  and  my  Saviour 
speaking  to  me  ;  and  he  shall  speak  to  me,  though 
the  whole  church  were  against  me,  or  though  I  were 
the  only  Christian  in  the  world.  "Yea,"  saith  our 


BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS.  65 

Saviour,  "  if  ye  abide  in  me,  and  my  words  abide  in 
you,  ye  shall  ask  what  ye  will,  and  it  shall  be  done 
unto  you."  We  say,  Put  your  soul  beneath  the  fire 
of  God's  word,  and  not  beneath  the  winking  tapers 
of  the  fathers,  or  the  councils  or  the  traditions  in  the 
churches!  And  just  so,  if  we  could  get  the  Ro- 
man Catholics  within  the  sound  of  our  voice  in 
God's  sanctuary,  we  would  say  to  every  Roman 
Catholic,  How  can  you  be  willing,  as  a  Man 
and  a  Christian,  to  let  any  priest,  or  pope,  or 
church,  or  daring  council,  or  saint  on  earth,  or  saint 
in  heaven,  take  from  your  soul  your  immediate 
personal  communion  with  your  God.  Come  to 
him  yourself,  and  live  upon  his  words  yourself,  and 
all  the  anathemas  of  all  the  popes,  councils,  priests, 
and  churches  in  the  world,  shall  only  strengthen 
and  deepen  in  your  soul  the  elements  of  eternal 
blessedness. 

And  to  every  Christian  we  would  say,  Mind  the 
example  of  Bunyan  and  his  wise  Evangelist,  "holy 
Mr.  Gifford,"  and  when  you  study  the  scriptures, 
study  them  as  for  your  life,  take  fast  hold  upon 
them,  bind  them  upon  your  neck,  engrave  them  in 
your  affections,  seek  to  be  set  down  in  them  by 
the  Spirit  of  God,  seek  their  experimental  know- 
ledge, the  living,  burning  experience  of  their  power. 
Let  the  Spirit  of  God  lead  you  from  truth  to  truth. 
So,  and  in  no  other  way,  you  can  be  powerful  as 
a  Christian.  Yea,  this  was  the  experience  of  Paul 
and  Luther  and  Bunyan,  and  of  all  men  mighty 
in  the  scriptures.  This  is  the  experience  that  we 
need,  in  this  very  age  into  which  we  are  thrown, 
in  order  to  save  the  church  and  the  world  from 

9 


66  BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS. 

destruction.  This  is  the  experience  that  must 
constitute  a  new  era  of  power  in  the  church,  if  we 
would  meet  the  crisis  that  has  come  upon  us,  in  the 
resurrection  of  old  exploded  errors  under  new 
forms.  We  must  not  let  Christ  be  displaced  by 
the  church.  We  must  enter  as  Zuingle  said,  into 
God's  thoughts  in  his  own  word  ;  and  we  must 
dwell  there,  as  in  a  tower  of  invincible  strength 
and  glory!  Hear  an  old,  noble,  martyred  saint, 
now  in  glory.  I  had  rather  follow  the  Shadow  of 
Christ,  said  the  blessed  Reformer  and  martyr, 
Bishop  Hooper,  than  the  body  of  all  the  general 
councils  or  doctors  since  the  death  of  Christ.  It 
is  mine  opinion  unto  all  the  world,  that  the  scrip- 
tures solely,  and  the  apostle's  church  is  to  be  fol- 
lowed, and  no  man's  authority,  be  he  Augustine, 
Tertullian,  or  even  Cherubim  or  Seraphim ! 

And  to  every  unconverted  person  we  would  say, 
See  how  Bunyan  entered  the  strait  and  narrow  way 
and  rose  to  Heaven.  He  followed  the  word  of  God. 
Take  you  the  word  of  God.  Take  that,  one  sentence, 
Flee  from  the  wrath  to  come ;  and  let  it  point  you 
to  that  other  sentence,  Believe  in  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ.  And  if  the  world,  seeing  you  so  set  out, 
ridicule  you,  shut  your  ears  like  Christian  and  run 
forward,  and  stay  not,  till  the  Wicket  Gate  opens 
before  you,  and  you  enter,  and  become  a  blessed 
Pilgrim  from  the  City  of  Destruction  to  the  City  of 
Immanuel. 

Here  now,  is  the  secret  of  Bunyan's  power  in 
preaching.  He  became  a  preacher,  through  his 
power  in  God's  word.  That  word,  so  kindled  in 
his  soul  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  could  not  be  repressed; 


BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS.  67 

it  would  blaze  out ;  it  was  as  a  fire  in  his  bones, 
if  he  restrained  it,  and  it  must  burn.  Unconscious- 
ly to  himself,  others  first  marked  its  power  in  him, 
and  marked  him  as  an  instrument  of  God,  for  the 
instruction  of  his  people  and  the  conversion  of  men. 
Bunyan  was  pressed  on,  but  never  put  himself 
forward.  The  gifts  and  graces  of  God  in  him 
shone  so  brightly,  that  men  would  have  him  for 
their  minister.  He  was  exceedingly  retiring,  hum- 
ble, trembling,  self-distrustful,  and  began  to  speak 
only  to  a  few,  in  few  words,  in  little  meetings. 
But  it  was  soon  seen  and  felt  that  the  Spirit  and 
the  word  of  God  were  speaking  in  him.  And  even 
before  he  became  the  ordained  pastor  of  a  people, 
he  had  that  seal  of  God's  ambassadors,  which  is 
better  than  all  the  consecrating  oil  of  the  Vatican, 
better  than  the  hands  of  all  the  Bishops,  better  than 
all  apostolical  successions  traced  down  through 
idolaters  and  adulterers  in  the  House  of  God ;  he 
had  the  seal  of  the  Spirit  of  God  upon  his  preach- 
ing, bringing  men  to  Christ.  He  could  say,  if  he 
chose,  "The  seal  of  mine  apostleship  are  YE  IN 
THE  LORD  !  Though  I  be  not  an  apostle  unto 
others,  yet  doubtless  I  am  unto  you."  These 
things  were,  as  well  they  might  be,  an  argument 
unto  Bunyan,  that  God  had  called  him  to,  and  stood 
by  him  in  this  work.  Wherefore,  says  he,  though 
of  myself  of  all  the  saints  the  most  unworthy,  yet  I, 
but  with  great  fear  and  trembling  at  the  sight  of  my 
own  weakness,  did  set  upon  the  work,  and  did, 
according  to  my  gift,  and  the  proportion  of  my 
faith,  preach  that  blessed  gospel  that  God  has 
showed  me  in  the  holy  word  of  truth ;  which,  when 


68  BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS. 

the  country  understood  they  came  in  t<  rear  th* 
word  by  hundreds,  and  that  from  all  pail ,,  though 
upon  divers  and  sundry  accounts. 

Bunyanwas  called  to  his  ministry,  a- id  led  into 
it,  by  God's  word,  though  most  unfortr-nstely  not 
in  the  regular  line  of  the  apostolical  succession. 
He  enumerates  the  passages  which  ran  in  his 
mind  and  encouraged  and  strengthened  him  ;  and 
they  are  very  striking,  and  all-sufficient  for  his 
justification.  The  first  of  them  is  that  of  Acts 
viii.  4.  "Therefore  they  that  were  scattered 
abroad,  went  every  where  preaching  the  word." 
Bunyan  knew  there  was  no  apostolical  succession 
there.  Another  passage  was  that  in  1  Peter  iv.  10. 
"As  every  man  hath  received  the  gift,  even  so  min- 
ister the  same  one  to  another,  as  good  stewards 
of  the  manifold  grace  of  God."  Bunyan  knew  that 
being  addressed  to  the  strangers  scattered  through- 
out Pontus,  Galatia,  Cappadocia,  Asia  and  Bithynia, 
there  was  no  apostolical  succession  there.  He  also 
knew  that  in  the  case  of  the  household  of  Ste- 
phanas, who  had  addicted  themselves  to  the  minis- 
try of  the  saints,  there  was  no  apostolical  succession. 
And  these  passages  all  were  as  so  many  certificates 
to  him  from  Jesus  Christ,  that  he,  being  called  by 
the  Holy  Ghost,  might  preach  the  gospel.  And  so 
he  did  preach  it,  and  many  and  blessed  were  the 
seals  of  his  faithful  stewardship.  He  knew  what 
the  office  of  the  ministry  was.  He  had  often  read 
Paul's  catalogue  of  its  qualifications,  and  they  suited 
the  frame  of  his  own  intrepid  spirit.  "  In  all 
things  approving  ourselves  as  the  ministers  of 
God,  in  much  patience,  in  afflictions,  in  necessities, 


BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS.  69 

in  distresses,  in  stripes,  in  imprisonments,  in 
tumults,  in  labors,  in  watchings,  in  fastings  ;  by 
pureness,  by  knowledge,  by  long-suffering,  by 
kindness,  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  by  love  unfeign- 
ed ;  by  the  word  of  truth,  by  the  power  of 
God,  by  the  armor  of  righteousness  on  the  right 
hand  and  on  the  left,  by  honor  and  dishonor, 
by  evil  report  and  good  report ;  as  deceivers, 
and  yet  true  ;  as  unknown,  and  yet  well  known  ; 
as  dying,  and  behold  we  live ;  as  chastened, 
and  not  killed ;  as  sorrowful,  yet  always  re- 
joicing ;  as  poor,  yet  making  many  rich ;  as 
having  nothing,  and  yet  possessing  all  things." 
2  Cor.  vi.  4 — 10.  There  is  no  apostolical  succes- 
sion here,  nor  prelatical  nor  episcopal  consecra- 
tion ;  but  a  succession  of  adversities  ;  a  consecration 
to  the  sacred  fires  of  self-denial  and  of  suffering  for 
Christ's  sake.  Assuredly  John  Bunyan  was  as  true, 
and  regular,  and  Heaven-commissioned  a  minister 
of  Jesus  Christ,  as  any  bishop  jn  lawn  sleeves,  under 
whose  jurisdiction  he  was  forbidden  to  preach,  and 
was  thrust  into  prison. 

Bunyan's  life  and  discipline,  under  the  leadings 
of  Divine  Providence,  were  very  much  like  those  of 
some  of  the  early  Reformers  of  England.  In  his 
character  and  his  preaching  he  resembled  not  a 
little  the  honesty  and  vigor,  the  straight- forwardness 
and  humor  of  Bishop  Latimer.  He  had  kindred 
qualities  also  with  those  of  Luther,  and  the  perusal 
of  Luther's  Commentary  on  Galatians,  we  doubt 
not,  exerted  a  great  influence  on  the  character  of 
Bunyan's  preaching.  Nevertheless,  the  little  that 
Bunyan  received  from  others  became  his  own,  as 


70  BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS. 

much  as  if  it  had  originated  with  himself;  being  a 
process  as  natural  and  unconscious  in  his  intel- 
lectual and  moral  being,  as  that  in  which  the  dews 
and  light  from  heaven,  falling  on  the  plants,  are 
worked  into  the  nature  of  the  fruits  and  foliage. 

Bunyan  always  preached  what  he  saw  and  felt, 
and  so  the  character  of  his  preaching  varied  with 
the  aspect  which  Divine  Truth,  in  the  coloring 
of  his  personal  hopes  and  fears,  wore  to  his  own 
soul.  He  enumerates  three  chief  enclosures  in 
the  pastures  of  Divine  Truth,  in  which  he  was  de- 
tained by  his  own  experience  ;  for  he  dared  not 
break  through  that  hedge,  and  take  things  at 
second  hand,  as  he  might  find  them.  He  says, 
that  he  never  endeavored  nor  durst  make  use,  of 
other  men's  lives,  or  tracings,  though,  he  adds,  I  do 
not  condemn  all  that  do ;  for  I  verily  thought  and 
found  by  experience  that  what  was  taught  me  by 
the  word  and  Spirit  of  Christ  could  be  spoken, 
maintained,  and  stood  to  by  the  soundest  and  best 
established  conscience.  He  could,  in  a  great 
measure,  say  with  the  apostle,  I  certify  you,  breth- 
ren, that  the  gospel  which  was  preached  of  me  is 
not  after  man;  for  I  neither  received  it  of  man, 
neither  was  I  taught  it,  but  by  the  revelation  of 
Jesus  Christ. 

In  the  first  years  of  his  preaching,  Bunyan  had 
not  advanced  to  that  richness  and  blissfulness  of 
religious  experience,  in  the  possession  and  com- 
mand of  which  he  wrote  the  Pilgrim's  Progress. 
As  a  preacher,  he  was  at  first  as  a  man  flying  from 
hell,  and  warning  others  to  flee  also,  but  not  having 
reached  the  gates  of  Heaven.  He  was  as  his  own 


BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS.  71 

Pilgrim,  trembling  beneath  the  overhanging  rocks 
of  Sinai,  stunned  by  the  crashing  peals  of  thunder, 
and  well  nigh  blinded  by  the  lightning.  He  was 
passing  through  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of 
Death,  and  knowing  the  terrors  of  the  Lord  he 
persuaded  men,  pouring  out  upon  them,  as  in  a 
stream  of  fire,  the  intensity  of  his  own  convictions. 
How  he  preached  in  the  midst  of  such  soul-torturing 
experience  may  be  gathered  from  his  own  language. 
This  part  of  my  work,"  says  he,  "  I  fulfilled  with 
great  sense  :  for  the  terrors  of  the  Law,  and  guilt 
for  my  transgressions,  lay  heavy  upon  my  con- 
science. I  preached  what  I  felt,  what  smartingly  I 
did  feel,  even  that,  under  which  my  poor  soul  did 
groan  and  tremble  to  astonishment.  Indeed,  I 
have  been  as  one  sent  to  them  from  the  dead. 

I  WENT  MYSELF  IN  CHAINS  TO  PREACH  TO  THEM  IN 
CHAINS  ;  AND  CARRIED  THAT  FIRE  IN  MY  OWN  CON- 
SCIENCE, THAT  I  PERSUADED  THEM  TO  BE  AWARE  OF. 

I  can  truly  say,  that  when  I  have  been  to  preach,  I 
have  gone  full  of  Guilt  and  Terror  to  the  pulpit 
door ;  and  then  it  hath  been  taken  off,  and  I  have 
been  at  liberty  in  my  mind  until  I  have  done  my 
work;  and  then  immediately,  even  before  I  could 
get  down  the  pulpit  stairs,  I  have  been  as  bad  as  I 
was  before.  Yet  God  carried  me  on  ;  but  surely 
with  a  strong  hand,  for  neither  guilt  nor  hell  could 
take  me  off  my  work."  So,  Bunyan  preached,  and 
preaching  so,  it  is  no  wonder  that  he  made  an  im- 
pression both  on  men  and  devils.  He  describes 
with  great  nature  and  truth  his  various  frames  in 
preaching ;  sometimes  with  such  enlargement  of 
soul,  that  he  could  speak  as  in  a  very  flame  of  fire  ; 


72  BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS. 

and  then  again  so  straitened  in  his  utterance  before 
the  people,  as  if  his  head  had  been  in  a  bag  all  the 
time  of  his  exercise.  The  truth  is,  the  heart  of  the 
preacher  is  more  apt  to  be  in  the  bag  than  his  head 
is ;  and  when  his  heart  is  there,  then  generally,  as 
to  effect,  his  head  is  there  also.  This  experience 
of  the  bag,  we  are  sorry  to  say,  is  rather  more  com- 
mon than  that  of  the  seraphic  enlargement  of  soul, 
which  the  love  of  Christ  ought  always  to  give  us. 
Thus  Bunyan  went  on  preaching,  travelling 
through  those  special  enclosures  in  the  word  of 
God,  of  which  he  speaks,  about  the  space  of  five 
years  or  more,  when,  says  he,  "I  was  caught  in  my 
then  present  practice,  and  cast  into  prison  where 
I  have  lain  above  as  long  again  to  confirm  the 
truth  by  way  of  suffering,  as  I  was  before  in  testi- 
fying of  it  according  to  the  Scriptures,  in  a  way  of 
preaching."  Nor  is  it  to  be  supposed  that  during 
all  this  time  Bunyan  was  free  from  the  temptations 
of  Satan  in  his  ministry ;  nay,  he  had  them  abun 
dantly,  but  somewhat  changed  from  inward  to  ex- 
ternal; for  "when  Satan  perceived  that  his  thus 
tempting  and  assaulting  me  would  not  answer  his 
design ;  to  wit,  to  overthrow  the  ministry,  and 
make  it  ineffectual  as  to  the  ends  thereof;  then  he 
tried  another  way,  which  was  to  stir  up  the  minds 
of  the  ignorant  and  malicious  to  load  me  with 
slanders  and  reproaches :  now  therefore  I  may  say, 
that  what  the  devil  could  devise,  and  his  instru- 
ments invent,  was  whirled  up  and  down  the  coun- 
try against  me,  thinking,  as  I  said,  that  by  that 
means  they  should  make  my  ministry  to  be  aban- 
doned. It  began  therefore  to  be  rumored  up  and 


BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS.  73 

down  among  the  people  that  I  was  a  witch,  a  Jesuit, 
a  highwayman,  a  whoremonger,  and  the  like.  To 
all  which  I  shall  only  say,  God  knows  that  I  am 
innocent.  I  have  a  good  conscience,  and  whereas 
they  speak  evil  of  me  as  an  evil  doer,  they  shall  be 
ashamed  that  falsely  accuse  my  good  conversation 
in  Christ.  So  then,  what  shall  I  say  to  those  who 
have  thus  bespattered  me  1  Shall  I  threaten  them  ? 
Shall  I  chide  them  ?  Shall  I  flatter  them  I  Shall 
I  entreat  them  to  hold  their  tongues  ?  No,  not  I. 
Were  it  not  that  these  things  make  those  ripe  for 
damnation,  who  are  the  authors  and  abettors,  I 
would  say  unto  them,  Report  it,  because  it  will  in- 
crease my  glory.  Therefore,  I  bind  these  lies  and 
slanders  to  me  as  an  ornament ;  it  belongs  to  my 
Christian  profession  to  be  thus  vilified,  slandered, 
reproached  and  reviled ;  and  since  all  this  is 
nothing  else,  as  my  God  and  conscience  do  bear 
me  witness,  I  rejoice  in  reproaches  for  Christ's 
sake." 

"Now  as  Satan  endeavored  by  reproaches  and 
slanders  to  make  me  vile  among  my  countrymen, 
that  if  possible  my  preaching  might  be  made  of  no 
more  effect,  so  there  was  added  hereto,  a  long  and 
tedious  imprisonment,  that  thereby  I  might  be 
frightened  from  the  service  of  Christ,  and  the 
world  terrified,  and  made  afraid  to  hear  me  preach. 
Of  which  I  shall  in  the  next  place  give  you  a  brief 
account." 

Now  in  this  matter  of  Bunyan's  imprisonment, 
it  is  evident  that  so  far  as  Satan  had  a  share  in  it, 
he  did,  as  we  say,  overshoot  the  mark ;  he  was  a 

10 


74  BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS. 

clear  illustration  of  that  saying  of  Shakspeare's 
concerning 

"Vaulting  ambition, which  o'erleaps  itself, 
And  falls  on  t'other  side." 

Doubtless  this  Enemy  of  souls,  and  this  adversary 
of  Bunyan,  because  of  the  great  good  he  was  doing 
in  his  preaching,  supposed  he  had  accomplished  a 
great  work  when,  through  the  tyranny  of  the  Church 
Establishment,  he  had  succeeded  in  silencing  the 
preacher;  and  when  he  got  him  into  prison,  he 
thought  within  himself,  There  is  an  end  of  that 
man's  usefulness ;  no  more  souls  shall  rise  to  glory 
through  him.  But  what  a  signal  mistake  !  Per- 
haps the  greatest  mistake  but  one  or  two,  that 
Satan  ever  committed !  If  this  man,  John  Bun- 
yan, had  been  permitted  still  to  go  at  large  and 
preach,  the  world,  doubtless,  would  never  have 
been  blessed  with  the  Pilgrim's  Progress.  But 
God  permitted  the  wrath  of  Bunyan's  adversaries 
to  shut  him  up  in  prison  just  at  that  point,  where 
the  inward  temptations  of  the  devil,  and  the  disci- 
pline of  God's  Spirit,  and  Bunyan's  varied  acquaint- 
ance with  men,  and  knowledge  of  his  own  heart, 
and  experience  in  the  business  of  preaching,  and 
experimental  knowledge  of  the  gospel,  and  of  the 
power,  blessedness,  and  fitness  of  God's  word,  had 
just  fitted  him  for  the  composition  of  precisely  such 
a  work.  I  say  just  at  the  point  when  God  had 
fitted  his  chosen  instrument  for  this  work,  he  per- 
mitted the  malice  of  his  infernal  Enemy,  and  the 
wrath  of  his  earthly  adversaries,  to  put  him  in  a 
quiet  cell,  where  he  would  have  heavenly  retirement 


BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS.  75 

to  meditate  upon  it,  and  uninterrupted  leisure  to 
accomplish  it.  Was  there  ever  a  more  perfect  and 
delightful  illustration  of  that  promise,  surely,  thou 
wilt  cause  the  wrath  of  man  to  praise  thee,  and  the 
remainder  of  wrath  thou  wilt  restrain  ! 

And  now  as  to  these  Satanic  temptations  : — hav- 
ing followed  Bunyan  to  prison,  we  must  perforce 
leave  him  there  till  such  time  as  we  can,  God 
willing,  dwell  more  particularly  on  the  manner  in 
which  he  was  brought  there,  and  the  way  in  which 
the  light  and  loveliness  of  the  creations  of  his  Pil- 
grim arose  like  the  sun  in  his  soul  out  of  that  im- 
prisoned darkness.  But  a  few  words  as  to  these 
Satanic  temptations.  It  is  a  deeply  interesting  and 
important  subject ;  one  on  which  we  would  much 
rather  devote  a  whole  lecture.  We  do  not  sup- 
pose that  any  man  who,  in  spite  of  the  testimony 
of  the  scriptures,  is  a  disbeliever  in  the  existence 
of  the  devil  and  his  angels,  will  be  brought  to 
believe  on  the  testimony  of  Bunyan  ;  and  yet, 
in  the  providence  of  God  there  might  be  such 
a  thing  ;  at  any  rate  the  strong  and  simple  expe- 
rience and  testimony  of  Bunyan  might  lead  such 
a  man  to  review  with  more  candor  and  less  doubt 
the  scripture  argument  and  evidence.  And 
we  say  that  the  murky  experience  of  Bunyan 
cannot  philosophically  be  accounted  for  on  any 
other  principles,  than  those  laid  down  in  the  Scrip- 
tures, nor  in  any  other  way  so  rationally,  so  proba- 
bly, so  truly,  as  Bunyan  himself  under  the  light  of 
the  Scriptures,  has  taken  to  illustrate  it.  Refer  it 
to  Satanic  agency,  and  all  is  plain,  consistent,  and 
full  of  the  deepest,  most  solemn  interest.  Reject 


76  BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS. 

that  agency,  and  all  is  unaccountable,  absurd,  pro- 
digious; unless,  indeed,  you  make  Bimyan  a  down- 
right madman,  a  lunatic ;  which  conclusion,  in 
regard  to  a  man  whose  whole  life,  from  the  time 
when  that  madness  commenced,  was  one  bright 
career  of  goodness,  and  who  in  the  midst  of  it 
wrote  the  most  sensible,  excellent  and  delightful 
book  in  the  language,  would  be  the  most  absurd 
of  all  conclusions.  Indeed,  there  was  more  "  method 
in  his  madness"  than  there  is  in  most  other  men's 
sanity.  But  his  own  deliberate  conclusions  con- 
cerning the  workings  of  his  mind,  and  the  influ- 
ences brought  to  bear  upon  him,  formed  fifteen 
years  or  more  after  his  own  personal  passage  through 
the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death,  formed  in  the 
midst  of  light  from  heaven,  formed  with  the  most 
careful  adherence  to  the  words  and  principles  of 
the  Scriptures,  formed  with  the  help  of  much 
observance  of  the  conflicts  of  others,  and  formed 
by  a  mind  not  at  all  inclined  to  fanaticism,  but  re- 
markably liberal,  tolerant,  free  from  extremes,  and 
cautious  in  asserting  a  supernatural  interposition, 
as  in  some  remarkable  cases  we  have  seen  he  was; 
I  say  the  conclusions  of  such  a  mind,  after  such  a 
period  of  thoughtful,  prayerful  examination,  are 
invaluable,  and  to  be  relied  upon. 

They  even  form  an  important  addition  to  our 
external  testimony  for  the  truth  of  the  Scriptures, 
and  the  manner  of  their  interpretation.  How  often 
do  we  have  to  resort  to  existing  realities  to  explain 
texts  of  Scripture  otherwise  inexplicable,  and  which 
to  the  infidel  vulgar,  to  men  of  the  kin  of  Voltaire 
and  Tom  Paine,  serve  for  ignorant  and  senseless 


\ 


BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS.  77 

ridicule.  For  example,  to  take  one  of  the  very 
simplest  instances,  if  a  man  meet  with  the  passage, 
"  I  am  become  like  a  bottle  in  the  smoke,"  or  the 
passage  about  putting  new  wine  into  old  bottles,  he 
must  go  to  an  external  reality  to  determine  its 
meaning  ;  and  if  he  does  not  know  (as  most  infidel 
writers  have  not  known  enough  even  about  the 
Scriptures  to  know)  that  bottles  were  made  ou  t  of 
goat-skins,  he  may,  perhaps,  like  Voltaire  or  Tom 
Paine,  exercise  his  wit  upon  these  passages.  But 

he  be  a  believer,  and  come  for  the  first  time  upon 
such  an  illustration,  he  will  say,  How  delightful  is 
this  !  I  bless  God  for  this  !  Now  I  know  the  mean- 
ing of  a  passage  of  which  before  I  was  ignorant. 
And  just  so,  if  what  is  said  in  the  Scriptures  in 
many  passages  about  the  temptations  of  the  devil, 
were  perfectly  inexplicable  to  one  who  had  never 
met  with  those  temptations,  and  he  should  for  the 
first  time  meet  the  tale  of  Bunyan's  trials,  he  would 
say,  when  he  sees  such  experience,  now  I  know 
how  to  interpret  those  Scriptures  ;  now  I  see  the 
meaning  of  things  which  I  did  not  see  before; 
now  I  know  the  meaning  of  those  fiery  darts  of  the 
Wicked  One.  Poor  Bunyan  !  His  suffering  was, 
as  it  were,  vicarious  ;  he  was  tried,  that  I  might 
be  instructed. 

Suffer  me  to  illustrate  this  matter  still  further, 
for  it  is  important.  Among  the  difficulties  brought 
against  the  Scriptures,  it  had,  at  one  time,  often 
been  alleged  as  an  objection  to  the  historical  accu- 
racy of  the  New  Testament,  that  it  gave  the  title 
of  Proconsul  to  the  Governor  of  Cyprus,  (Acts, 
13  :  7,)  when,  in  strict  propriety,  he  could  only 


78  BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS. 

have  been  styled  Praetor  of  the  Province.  So 
strongly  did  this  apparent  inaccuracy  weigh  with 
Beza,  observes  Mr.  Benson,  that  he  absolutely  at- 
tempted to  remove  it  by  translation ;  and  our  own 
translators  have  used  the  term  Deputy,  instead  of 
the  correct  title  of  Proconsul.  Now,  it  is  a  fact,  that 
a  medal  has  since  then  been  discovered,  on  which 
the  very  same  title  is  assigned,  about  the  same 
period,  to  the  governor  of  the  same  province,  and 
so  that  difficulty  vanishes  forever.  But,  as  Benson 
well  remarks  in  his  "  Scripture  Difficulties,"  it  does 
not  vanish  without  leaving  stronger  evidence  for 
the  truth.  Now,  as  to  these  difficulties  about  Sa- 
tanic temptations,  about  the  devil,  and  his  agency 
with  the  mind,  a  man  may  say,  it  is  inexplicable, 
incredible,  not  to  be  taken  as  strict  history,  but 
something  figurative,  a  mythos.  But  suppose,  in  a 
really  candid  and  inquiring  frame  of  mind,  this  in- 
experienced man  lights  upon  the  personal  history 
of  Luther,  or  upon  this  thrilling  story  of  Bunyan's 
temptations,  a  hundred  years  afterwards,  is  it  not 
just  as  if  he  had  found  a  medal,  struck  in  the  same 
sacred  treasury  where  the  words  of  scripture  were 
engraven,  with  the  very  image  of  the  devil  on  one 
side,  and  the  inscription  SATANIC  TEMPTER  above 
it  ?  And  now  ought  not  the  difficulty  to  vanish  for- 
ever I  And  are  not  discoveries  like  these  of  incal- 
culable importance  to  the  believer  in  the  evil  hour 
of  temptation  ?  Yea,  it  is  like  Christian  himself 
hearing  a  human  voice  before  him  in  the  Valley  of 
the  Shadow  of  Death,  where  it  seemed  as  if  no  liv- 
ing creature  ever  could  pass  safely. 

Now,  on  this  point  there  is  a  wonderful  coinci- 


BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS.  79 

deuce  between  the  experience  of  men  recorded  in 
the  Word  of  God,  and  those  out  of  it ;  and  these 
two  things  illustrate  each  other.  Take  Job,  for 
example.  If  a  man  say,  this  experience  of  Bun- 
yan  is  all  a  delusion,  it  is  merely  his  own  imagina- 
tion tormenting  him,  there  never  was  or  could  be 
such  a  reality.  We  say,  bewrare  ;  this  experience 
of  Bunyan  has  its  original  in  the  Word  of  God 
itself;  it  is  countersigned,  as  it  were,  in  Job's  own 
history.  Or  if  a  man  say,  this  experience  of  Job 
is  figurative  ;  no  man  ever  experienced  such  deal- 
ings in  reality ;  we  say,  so  far  from  this,  other  men 
|  V  have  experienced  su£h  discipline ;  it  is  counter- 
signed, as  it  were,  and  illustrated,  in  the  experience 
of  a  modern  Christian.  It  is  true,  that  in  the  ac- 
count of  Job,  the  steps  are  marked  by  the  Divine 
Hand  ;  but  in  the  account  of  Bunyan,  also,  the  steps 
are  just  as  clear,  with  that  single  exception.  They 
are  almost  as  clear  as  if  it  had  been  said,  as  in  the 
case  of  Job,  There  was  a  man  in  the  land  of  Eng- 
land whom  God  would  take  and  prepare  for  the 
greatest  usefulness  of  all  men  living.  And  Satan 
said,  let  me  take  Bunyan,  and  I  will  tempt  him  from 
his  integrity,  and  make  him  curse  God,  and  deny 
his  very  being.  And  God  said,  let  Satan  try  his 
uttermost  upon  this  man,  and  the  awful  discipline 
shall  only  prepare  him  for  greater  usefulness  and 
glory.  So,  Satan  went  forth,  and  by  the  space  of 
two  years  filled  the  soul  of  Bunyan  with  distresses 
and  temptations,  and  the  fiery  darts  of  the  Wicked 
One.  Is  not  this  the  very  truth  of  the  matter  ?  You 
may  say,  that  with  Job,  Satan's  temptations  were 
all  external,  while  with  Bunyan  they  were  mostly 


80  BUJNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS. 

inward.  Yes,  but  let  it  be  remembered  that  Job 
had  a  bosom  companion,  a  treacherous,  unbelieving, 
discontented  wife,  who  would,  in  the  place  of  the 
devil,  do  all  the  whisperings,  and  the  blasphemous 
suggestions  that  were  needed.  Yea,  while  Job  was 
passing  through  the  valley  of  temptation,  this 
woman  was  as  a  fiend  at  his  ear,  Curse  God  and  die, 
to  make  it  as  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death ! 
Bunyan,  on  the  other  hand,  had  a  godly  wife,  who 
would  do  no  part  of  the  work  of  the  Tempter,  but 
would  shield  her  husband,  and  help  him  on  to  God. 
As  to  many  matters  the  cases  are  wonderfully  similar, 
especially  if  in  Bunyan's  imprisonment  likewise  you 
trace  the  malice  of  the  devil,  as  assuredly  you  ought. 

Now,  if  you  pass  from  the  Old  Testament  to  the 
New,  the  very  experience  of  our  blessed  Lord  at 
the  very  outset  confirms  this  view.  Before  entering 
on  his  great  work,  he  was  led  of  the  Spirit  into  the 
wilderness,  to  be  tempted  of  the  Devil ! 

To  be  tempted  of 'the  Devil!  And  for  what 
cause  ?  What  ineffable  mystery  is  this  !  Nay,  it 
is  indeed  a  mystery,  and  yet  in  part  it  is  so  brightly, 
so  sweetly,  so  lovingly  explained  to  us,  that  nothing 
could  be  more  delightful  to  the  soul  than  this  very 
fact.  Turn,  then,  in  your  Bibles,  to  those  precious 
passages  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  which  ex- 
plain our  blessed  Lord's  temptations,  and  the  reason 
for  them,  and  in  some  respects  the  manner  of  them. 
They  tell  us  that  it  became  Him,  for  whom  are  all 
things,  and  by  whom  are  all  things,  in  bringing 
many  sons  unto  glory,  to  make  the  Captain  of 
their  salvation  perfect  through  sufferings.  And, 
therefore,  as  the  children  are  partakers  of  flesh 


BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS..  81 

and  blood,  he  also  himself  took  part  in  the  same, 
that  through  death  he  might  destroy  him  that  had 
the  power  of  death,  that  is,  the  devil.  Wherefore, 
in  all  things  it  behooved  him  to  be  made  like  unto 
his  brethren,  that  he  might  be  a  merciful  and 
faithful  High  Priest,  to  make  reconciliation  for  the 
sins  of  the  people.  FOR  IN  THAT  HE  HIMSELF  HATH 

SUFFERED,  BEING    TEMPTED,  HE    IS  ABLE  TO  SUCCOR 

THEM  THAT  ARE  TEMPTED.  Wherefore,  people  of 
God,  rejoice  !  For  we  have  not  an  High  Priest 
which  cannot  be  touched  with  the  feeling  of  our  in- 
firmities, but  was  in  all  points  tempted  like  as  we 
are,  yet  without  sin.  Let  us,  therefore,  come  boldly 
unto  the  throne  of  grace,  that  we  may  obtain  mercy, 
and  find  grace  to  help  in  time  of  need. 

Now,  is  any  further  explanation  needed  than  such 
a  passage,  so  full  of  light,  mercy,  loveliness,  in  re- 
gard to  that  other  passage,  Then  was  Jesus  led  up 
of  the  Spirit  into  the  wilderness  to  be  tempted  of 
the  devil  I  And  how  could  he  be  tempted  with 
evil  thoughts  in  any  other  way  ?  They  could  not 
spring  out  of  his  own  soul,  for  he  was  perfectly  sin- 
less. They  could  not  come  from  his  own  imagina- 
tion, for  that  imagination  was  invested  with  the 
splendors  of  Heaven.  They  could  not  be  the 
ravings  of  lunacy  ;  for  though,  because  of  our 
Saviour's  supremacy  of  goodness,  because  of  the 
lightning  of  his  countenance,  his  life,  and  his  words 
against  sin,  and  because  of  his  irresistible  power  in 
casting  out  devils,  his  enemies  asserted  that  he  had 
a  devil  and  was  mad,  yet  no  man  now  would  dare 
the  blasphemy.  They  could  only  come  from  the 
personal  suggestions  of  the  Evil  One ;  and  thus  did 

11 


82  BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS. 


our  blessed  Lord  take  part  in  our  temptations  ;  thus 
did  that  spotless  being  pass  through  a  furnace  of 
blasphemies  and  hell-born  propositions,  the  very 
Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death ;  and  thus,  at  the 
very  commencement  of  his  ministry,  did  the  Cap- 
tain of  our  salvation  begin  to  be  made  perfect 
through  sufferings.  Nor  is  there  in  all  his  ministry, 
nor,  I  had  almost  said,  even  in  his  death  upon  the 
cross,  a  greater,  more  wonderful,  more  affecting 
proof  of  his  boundless  compassion  and  love.  The 
spotless  Son  of  God  consenting,  for  our  sakes,  at 
the  very  entrance  on  his  ministry ,  to  pass  through 
so  revolting,  so  awful,  so  hideous  an  ordeal ;  an 
ordeal  ten  thousand  times  worse  to  an  infinitely 
holy  mind  than  death  itself!  Consenting  to  be  for 
forty  days  alone  in  the  wilderness  with  Satan  as  a 
personal  companion,  with  this  blaspheming,  daring, 
polluted,  tortured  fiend,  dragon,  devil,  belching  forth 
his  hellish  thoughts,  and  insulting  our  blessed  Lord 
with  the  application  even  of  sacred  scripture  !  All 
this  for  us !  that  he  might  be  in  all  points  tempted 
like  as  we  are,  yet  without  sin !  Oh,  who  can  tell 
the  smallest  part  of  the  infinite  goodness  and  con- 
descension of  our  Redeemer  1 

He  was  led  up  of  the  Spirit  into  the  wilderness 
to  be  tempted  of  the  devil.  Now  let  me  say,  if 
you  will  read  the  opening  of  Milton's  Paradise 
Regained,  you  will  find  there  a  marvellously  proba- 
ble and  beautiful  description  of  the  manner  in 
which  Satan  would  enter  on  this  work  of  tempta- 
tion. Nor  did  his  disappointment,  and  his  utter 
discomfiture  in  it,  prevent  him  from  renewing  it  on 
the  eminent  disciples  of  our  blessed  Lord.  There 


BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS.  83 

were  some  of  them,  that,  like  Bunyan,  were  made 
to  know  the  very  "depths  of  Satan."  There  was 
Peter,  of  whom  our  blessed  Lord  forewarned  him, 
that  Satan  would  try  him  to  the  utmost  of  his 
malignity  and  power.  Simon,  Simon,  I  say  unto 
thee  that  Satan  hath  desired  to  have  thee,  that  he 
may  sift  thee  as  wheat.  Why !  this  is  the  very 
renewal  of  the  scene  in  the  Old  Testament  in  re- 
gard to  Job.  Let  me  but  lay  my  hand,  says  this 
sarcastic  and  malignant  devil,  upon  this  Peter,  this 
disciple  so  hot  and  zealous  for  his  Lord  and  Master, 
and  I  will  make  him  blaspheme  his  very  Saviour. 
I  will  make  him  curse  God  and  die.  Yes !  and 
the  devil  did  succeed  in  making  him  curse  God! 
Awful,  awful  truth !  Fearful  revelation  of  the 
meaning  of  our  Saviour  in  his  warning  to  Peter, 
and  of  the  dreadful  power  of  this  Tempter  of  man- 
kind !  But  he  did  not  succeed  in  making  him  die, 
not  in  utterly  putting  out  the  light  of  faith  and  life 
within  him.  No,  there  again  was  Satan  disap- 
pointed, and  out  of  evil  still  was  brought  forth 
good.  But  why,  how,  by  what  agency?  Ah,  how 
beautiful,  how  precious  is  the  explanation  !  Simon, 
Simon,  Satan  hath  desired  to  have  thee,  that  he 
may  sift  thee  as  wheat ;  but  I  have  prayed  for  thee, 
that  thy  faith  fail  not.  So  thou  shalt  yet  be 
saved  and  strengthened,  even  though  thou  shalt 
deny  thy  Lord ;  and  when  thou  art  converted, 
strengthen  thy  brethren !  Ah  yes,  that  was  the 
reason,  I  HAVE  PRAYED  FOR  THEE.  And  what 
saint  is  there  that  Christ  does  not  pray  for  ?  So, 
if  our  trust  be  in  him,  we  are  all  safe,  but  not  other- 
wise. And  now,  who  does  not  see  that  in  Peter's 


84  BTTNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS. 

case,  just  as  in  Bunyan's,  these  dreadful  storms  of 
temptation  were  permitted  to  overwhelm  him,  that 
even  out  of  that  terrible  experience,  out  of  those 
very  "depths  of  Satan,"  the  tempted  and  fallen 
disciple  might  gain  a  strength  in  the  end,  through 
the  good  Spirit  of  God,  which  not  another  of  the 
brethren,  except  perhaps  Paul,  ever  manifested. 
And  hence  you  can  trace  in  Peter's  rich  instructive 
epistles,  a  knowledge  of  the  great  adversary,  and 
a  warning  and  a  vigilance  against  him,  that  sprung 
from  Peter's  own  dreadful  wrestlings  with  him. 
Yea  those  very  blasphemies  that  Satan  made  Peter 
utter,  turned  out  to  be  the  most  effective  weapons, 
in  remembrance,  against  himself. 

And  now  I  should  like  to  ask  any  man  of  com- 
mon sense  to  contemplate  that  striking  declaration 
of  our  Lord  to  Peter,  "  Satan  hath  desired  to  have 
thee,  that  he  may  sift  thee  as  wheat,"  and  tell  me  in 
what  possible  way  he  would  translate  or  interpret  it, 
except  as  a  manifest  absurdity,  without  recognising 
the  existence  and  agency  of  Fallen  Spirits  ?  How,  I 
say,  shall  we  translate  it,  supposing  it  to  mean  merely 
an  evil  thought,  impulse,  principle  of  wickedness? 
Simon,  Simon,  I  say  unto  thee,  the  principle  of  wick- 
edness hath  desired  to  have  thee  that  it  may  sift  thee 
as  wheat !  Could  any  thing  be  more  ineffably  ab- 
surd, paltering,  emasculating,  than  such  a  mode  of 
dealing  with  the  Scriptures  ?  But  why  desire  to  re- 
sort to  such  absurdity  ?  Can  any  thing  be  more  con- 
sistent, steadfast,  and  definite,  than  the  voice  of 
the  whole  Bible  in  regard  to  the  personality  and 
agency  of  Satan?  In  the  very  opening  of  the 
Word  of  God  he  comes  before  us  in  that  awful 


r 

BUNYAN  S    TEMPTATIONS.  85 

• 

character,  sustained  ever  since,  as  the  Tempter  of 
mankind,  the  Tempter,  and  by  his  dreadful  power 
the  conqueror  of  the  first  Adam;  and  in  the 
opening  of  the  New  Testament,  the  very  first 
thing  we  see  of  him  again  is  as  the  great  Tempter 
of  Mankind,  in  personal  conflict  with  the  Son  of 
God,  the  Second  Adam,  to  be  by  him  thrown  as 
lightning  from  heaven ;  and  his  very  weapons  are 
those  which  he  used  with  Bunyan,  a  diabolical 
perversion  of  the  word  of  God  itself,  and  a  sugges- 
tion of  devilish  blasphemies.  And  then  in  the 
closing  up  of  all  revelation,  the  same  accursed  be- 
ing comes  into  view  as  the  Dragon,  the  Serpent, 
the  Devil  and  Satan,  the  Deceiver  of  the  world,  the 
Deceiver  of  the  nations,  the  Tempter  of  mankind, 
the  Accuser  of  our  brethren  ! 

I  have  referred  you  to  the  Temptation  of  our 
blessed  Lord,  and  to  that  beautiful  work  of  Milton, 
in  which,  with  so  much  veri-similitude,  the  character 
and  reflections  of  the  devil,  in  entering  on  that  work 
of  temptation,  are  drawn  before  us.  And  I  say, 
that  Satan  would  be  likely  to  make  the  same  re- 
flections, and  pursue  the  same  measures,  though 
on  a  smaller  scale,  whenever  he  saw  men  like 
Luther  or  Bunyan  in  such  an  attitude,  under  such 
a  discipline,  of  such  a  make,  that  he  might  expect 
great  danger  to  his  own  kingdom  from  their  efforts. 
For  it  is  characteristic  of  Satan,  as  of  all  the  wick- 
ed, never  to  profit  by  his  own  experience ;  and 
though  all  the  evil  he  ever  did,  recoils,  and  ever 
must  recoil,  upon  his  own  head,  still  he  goes  on- 
doing  it,  providing  materials  for  God  to  display  his 
own  glory,  and  out  of  evil  still  to  bring  forth 


86  BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS. 

good.  "  Experience  like  the  stern  lights  of  a  ship," 
only  shows  Satan  the  path  that  has  been  passed 
over,  and  on  he  goes,  committing  the  same  errors 
in  crime  again. 

Passing,  now,  in  this  argument,  from  our  Lord's 
temptation  to  our  Lord's  prayer,  we  find  there  a 
distinct  recognition  of  the  Satanic  Tempter ;  "Lead 
us  not  into  temptation,  but  deliver  us  from  the 
WICKED  ONE."  This  is  one  of  the  few  passages 
in  which  our  translation  of  the  Scriptures,  incom- 
parably excellent  though  it  be,  is  peculiarly  defec- 
tive, not  rendering  the  power  and  full  meaning  of  the 
original.  There  is  another  passage,  equally  unfor- 
tunate, where  the  translation,  in  the  opinion  of 
almost  all  commentators,  ancient  and  modern, 
ought  to  be  the  Evil  One,  or  the  Wicked  One,  the 
same  word  being  used  as  in  our  Lord's  prayer  : — 
"  But  the  Lord  is  faithful,  who  shall  establish  you, 
and  keep  you  from  the  Wicked  One."  (2  Thess. 
3  : 3.)  And  yet  another  passage  in  Ephesians, 
concerning  which  there  cannot  be  a  moment's 
doubt :  "  Above  all  taking  the  shield  of  faith,  where- 
with ye  shall  be  able  to  quench  all  the  fiery  darts  of 
the  WICKED  ONE."  (Ephes.  6  : 16.)  And  this  is 
a  passage  in  which  the  phrase  fiery  darts  is  wonder- 
fully expressive  and  powerful,  being  taken  from  the 
use  in  war  of  those  slender  arrows  of  cane,  to  which 
ignited  combustible  matter  was  attached,  which, 
when  shot,  would  set  on  fire  wood-work,  tents, 
whatever  there  was  that  would  catch  fire.  Just  so 
are  the  fiery  darts  of  the  WICKED  ONE  shot  into  the 
soul,  or  shot  at  the  Christian,  tipped,  as  it  were, 
with  damnation ;  and  if  there  be  wood,  hay,  stub- 


BUJVYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS.  87 

ble,  in  a  Christian's  works,  instead  of  prayer,  self- 
denial,  labor  for  Christ,  and  in  such  a  case  these 
darts  fall  into  the  soul,  then  what  a  conflagration, 
perhaps  what  apostacy,  what  ruin,  what  death! 
Now  in  war  it  was  the  aim  of  persons  so  assailed 
to  intercept  and  quench  these  burning  arrows  ;  and 
a  most  nimble  and  powerful  exercise  in  the  use  of 
the  shield  did  it  require  ;  and  in  the  Christian  war- 
fare, it  is  nothing  but  the  Shield  of  Faith,  and  an 
equally  nimble  and  dexterous  use  of  it,  that  can 
defend  the  Christian.  And  this  Bunyan  found  to 
his  cost ;  for  his  great  adversary  assailed  him  with 
a  fierce  fiery  storm  of  those  darts,  when  he  had  but 
very  little  faith  ;  and  his  very  experience  in  the  use 
of  his  shield  he  had  to  gain  in  his  conflicts  with  the 
Enemy.  Now  if  you  compare  these  passages  with 
some  others;  such  as,  "I  would  have  come  to  you 
once  and  again,  but  Satan  hindered  me ;"  "  Lest 
Satan  get  an  advantage  of  us,  for  we  are  not 
ignorant  of  his  devices  ;"  "  Lest  by  any  means 
the  Tempter  may  have  tempted  you,  and  our 
work  be  in  vain ;"  and  other  passages  of  the 
like  character;  you  will  see  delineated  in  the 
Scriptures  the  features  of  that  Fiend,  who  tempted 
Bunyan ;  and  you  cannot  doubt  the  meaning  of 
the  declaration  that  your  adversary  the  devil  goeth 
about  as  a  roaring  lion,  seeking  whom  he  may 
devour. 

Let  it  be  marked  that  I  have  here  confined 
myself  to  one  class  of  passages  in  regard  to  Satan, 
those  which  present  him  in  the  character  in  which 
we  have  to  do  with  him  in  the  case  of  Bunyan. 
There  are  multitudes  of  passages,  which  I  have 


88  BUNYAN'S  TEMPTATIONS. 

not  touched,  and  shall  not.  In  the  revelation  of 
St.  John  the  devil  is  said  to  be  concerned  in  throw 
ing  saints  into  prison,  that  they  may  be  tried  there ; 
and  here  is  a  new  mark  of  identity  between  the 
adversary  of  Bunyan  and  the  devil  of  the  Scrip- 
tures ;  and  a  new  proof  that  in  every  age  his  wiles 
and  stratagems  are  the  same.  I  could  easily  fill 
a  whole  volume  with  arguments  drawn  from  Scrip 
ture,  and  another  volume  with  proofs  from  expe- 
rience, on  this  subject.  There  is  one  point  of  im- 
portance in  Bunyan's  experience  of  the  wiles  of 
the  devil,  which  I  have  not  noticed,  and  that  is,  the 
great  advantage  which  early  habits  of  sin  give  to 
the  Tempter  against  our  own  souls.  Perhaps  we 
may  note  this  in  the  case  of  Peter,  in  the  readiness 
with  which  Satan  could  fill  his  mouth  with  profane- 
ness  in  the  recurrence  of  what  were  probably  his 
oaths  as  a  youthful  passionate  fisherman.  You 
may  note  it  much  more  clearly  in  the  case  of  Bun- 
yan, who  used  to  swear  so  dreadfully  in  his  child- 
hood, so  that  when  the  devil  in  his  manhood 
tempted  him  with  blasphemies,  he  had  a  powerful 
advantage  over  him.  God  indeed  often  uses  a 
man's  own  sins  to  be  terrible  scourges  to  him  ;  and 
in  this  is  realized  what  is  said  in  Jeremiah,  Thine 
own  wickedness  shall  correct  thee,  and  thy  back- 
slidings  shall  reprove  thee ;  know  therefore  and 
see  that  it  is  an  evil  and  bitter  thing  that  thou  hast 
forsaken  the  Lord  thy  God.  The  truth  of  this 
Bunyan  found  to  his  great  cost  under  the  assaults 
of  the  Tempter,  opening  anew  the  sluices  of  his 
youthful  wickedness. 


BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION 


Banyan's  use  of  his  temptations. — The  gloom  of  his  mind  in  the  early  part  of  his 
imprisonment. — His  faithfulness  to  Christ  in  the  midst  of  it. — His  perfect  disin- 
terestedness.— His  little  blind  daughter. — Relation  of  his  examination  and  impri- 
sonment.— That  old  enemy  Dr.  Lindale. — Bunyan's  admirable  answers  and 
Christian  deportment. — The  nature  and  preciousness  of  religious  liberty. — Parable 
by  Dr.  Franklin. 

THERE  never  was  a  man,  who  made  better  use 
of  his  temptations,  especially  the  temptations  by  his 
Great  Adversary,  than  Bunyan.  In  the  preface  to 
his  Grace  Abounding,  addressed  to  those  whom 
God  had  counted  him  worthy  to  bring  to  the  Re- 
deemer by  his  ministry,  he  says,  "  I  have  sent  you 
here  enclosed  a  drop  of  the  honey,  that  I  have 
taken  out  of  the  carcass  of  a  lion.  I  have  eaten 
thereof  myself,  and  am  much  refreshed  thereby. 
Temptations,  when  we  meet  them  at  first,  are  as 
the  lion  that  roared  upon  Samson  ;  but  if  we  over- 
come them,  the  next  time  we  see  them  we  shall  find 
a  nest  of  honey  within  them."  Nor  was  there  ever 
a  man  who  traced  the  parental  care,  tenderness  and 
goodness  of  God  more  clearly,  or  with  more  gratitude 
in  those  temptations,  the  designs  of  God  in  suffering 
such  things  to  befall  him,  and  the  manner  in  which 
those  designs  were  accomplished.  It  was  for 

12 


90  BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION. 

this  Bunyan  said,  that  God  suffered  him  to  lay 
so  long  at  Sinai,  to  see  the  fire,  and  the  cloud, 
and  the  darkness,  "  that  I  might  fear  the  Lord 
all  the  days  of  my  life  upon  earth,  and  tell  of  his 
wondrous  works  to  my  children." 

It  was  in  the  calm,  clear  light  of  heaven,  in  the 
light  of  Divine  Mercy  to  his  rescued  soul,  that  Bun- 
yan remembered  his  ways,  his  journey  ings,  the 
desert  and  the  wilderness,  the  Rock  that  followed 
him,  and  the  Manna  that  fed  him.  "  Thou  shalt 
remember  all  the  ways  which  the  Lord  thy  God  led 
thee  these  forty  years  in  the  wilderness,  to  humble 
thee,  and  prove  thee,  and  to  know  what  was  in  thine 
heart,  whether  thou  wouldst  keep  his  command- 
ments or  no."  The  grace  of  God  was  above  Bun- 
yan's  sins,  and  Satan's  temptations  too ;  he  could 
remember  his  fears  and  doubts  and  sad  months  with 
comfort ;  they  were  "  as  the  head  of  Goliah  in  his 
hand."  He  sang  of  God's  grace  as  the  children  of 
Israel,  with  the  Red  Sea  between  them  and  the  land 
of  their  enemies. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  temptations  of 
Satan  departed  entirely  from  Bunyan  when  he 
was  thrown  into  prison.  On  the  contrary,  he 
was  for  a  time  assailed  through  the  same  spirit 
of  unbelief,  of  which  his  Adversary  had  made  such 
fearful  use,  when  he  was  passing  through  the  Valley 
of  Humiliation,  and  of  the  Shadow  of  Death.  It  was 
in  the  early  part  of  his  imprisonment,  when  he  was 
in  a  sad  and  low  condition  for  many  weeks.  A  pretty 
business,  he  says  it  was ;  for  he  thought  his  im- 
prisonment might  end  at  the  gallows,  and  if  it  did, 
and  he  should  be  so  afraid  to  die  when  the  time 


BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION.  91 


came,  and  so  destitute  of  all  evidence  of  prepara- 
tion for  a  better  state  hereafter,  what  could  he  do ! 
These  thoughts,  revolved  in  his  mind  in  various 
shapes,  greatly  distressed  him.  He  was  afraid  of 
dishonoring  his  Saviour,  and  though  he  prayed 
earnestly  for  strength,  yet  no  comfort  came  ;  and 
the  only  encouragement  he  could  get  was  this  ;  that 
he  should  doubtless  have  an  opportunity  to  speak 
to  the  great  multitudes  that  would  come  to  see 
him  die,  and  if  God  would  but  use  his  last  words 
for  the  conversion  of  one  single  soul,  he  would  not 
count  his  life  thrown  away  nor  lost.  How  de- 
lightful is  the  evidence  of  Bunyan's  disinterested- 
ness, forgetfulness  of  self,  and  love  to  souls,  even 
in  the  darkness  and  distress  of  his  sore  spiritual 
conflicts  ! 

But  still  the  things  of  God  were  kept  out  of  his 
sight,  and  still  the  Tempter  followed  hard  upon 
him  ;  a  desperate  foe,  arid  able  still  at  times  to 
overwhelm  Bunyan's  soul  with  anguish,  although 
there  remained  only  the  hinder  part  of  the  tempest, 
and  the  thunder  was  gone  beyond  him.  "  Whither 
must  you  go  when  you  die  I "  was  <  the  gloomy, 
moody,  sullen  question  of  unbelief  in  Bunyan's  soul 
beneath  his  temptation.  What  will  become  of  you  I 
Where  will  you  be  found  in  another  world  I 
What  evidence  have  you  for  heaven  and  glory,  and 
an  inheritance  among  them  that  are  sanctified  ? 
For  many  weeks  poor  Bunyan  knew  not  what  to 
do  ;  till  at  length  it  came  to  him  with  great  power, 
that  at  all  events,  it  being  for  the  word  and  way  of 
God  that  he  was  in  this  condition  of  danger,  per- 
haps in  the  path  of  death,  he  was  engaged  not  to 


92  BUNYAN'S    EXAMINATION. 

%Z 

flinch  an  hair's  breadth  from  it.  Bunyan  thought, 
furthermore,  that  it  was  for  God  to  choose  whether 
he  would  give  him  comfort  then,  or  in  the  hour  of 
death,  or  whether  he  would  or  would  not  give  him 
comfort  in  either,  comfort  at  all ;  but  it  was  not  for 
Bunyan  to  choose  whether  to  serve  God  or  not, 
whether  to  hold  fast  his  profession  or  not,  for  to  this 
he  was  bound.  He  was  bound,  but  God  was  free  ; 
"  Yea,"  says  he,  "  it  was  my  duty  to  stand  to  his 
word,  whether  he  would  ever  look  upon  me,  or 
save  rne  at  the  last,  or  not ;  wherefore,  thought 
I,  the  point  being  thus,  I  am  for  going  on,  and  ven- 
turing my  eternal  state  with  Christ,  whether  I  have 
comfort  here  or  no.  If  God  doth  not  come  in, 
thought  I,  I  will  leap  off  the  ladder  even  blind- 
fold into  eternity ;  sink  or  swim,  come  heaven, 
come  hell.  Lord  Jesus,  if  thou  wilt  catch  me,  do  ; 
if  not,  I  will  venture  for  thy  name  !" 

Well  done,  noble  Bunyan !  Faithful  even  unto 
death,  and  faithful  even  in  darkness  !  Here  was  no 
imaginary  temptation  to  sell  thy  Saviour,  but  a  real 
inducement,  by  relinquishing  thy  confession  of  the 
truth,  to  escape  from  prison  and  from  death  ;  a 
temptation  accompanied  by  dreadful  darkness  in  thy 
soul.  And  yet,  amidst  it  all,  he  ventured  every 
thing  upon  Christ,  yea,  determined  to  die  for  him, 
even  though  rejected  by  him  !  Was  not  this  a  noble 
triumph  over  the  Tempter  1  One  would  think  that 
from  this  hour  he  would  have  left  Bunyan  in  utter 
despair,  yea,  that  he  would  have  spread  his  dragon- 
wings,  and  Bunyan  have  seen  him  no  more  forever! 
And  this  indeed  1  believe  that  he  did  ;  for  so  soon 
as  Bunyan  had  come  to  this  noble  and  steadfast  re- 


BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION.  93 

solution,  the  word  of  the  Tempter  flashed  across 
his  soul,  Doth  Job  serve  God  for  nought !  Hast 
thou  not  made  an  hedge  about  him.  He  serves 
God  for  benefits.  Ah,  thought  Bunyan,  then, 
even  in  the  opinion  of  Satan,  a  man  who  will 
serve  God  when  there  is  nothing  to  keep  or  to 
gain  by  it,  is  a  renewed  man,  an  upright  man.  Now, 
Satan,  thou  givest  me  a  weapon  against  thyself. 
"  Is  this  the  sign  of  a  renewed  soul,  to  desire  to 
serve  God,  when  all  is  taken  from  him  1  Is  he  a 
godly  man  that  will  serve  God  for  nothing,  rather 
than  give  out  I  Blessed  be  God,  then,  I  hope  I  have 
an  upright  heart ;  for  I  am  resolved,  God  giving 
me  strength,  never  to  deny  my  profession,  though  I 
had  nothing  at  all  for  my  pains." 

Here  was  a  second  fight  with  Apollyon,  and  a 
conquest  of  him  forever.  Bunyan's  perplexities, 
after  this,  were  but  as  drops  from  the  trees  after 
a  thunder-shower.  He  greatly  rejoiced  in  this 
trial.  It  made  his  heart  to  be  full  of  comfort,  be- 
cause he  hoped  it  proved  his  heart  sincere.  And 
indeed  it  did  ;  a  man  that  resolves  to  serve  Christ, 
come  heaven,  come  hell,  shows,  whatever  be  his 
darkness,  that  God  is  with  him  ;  and  Bunyan's 
noble  resolution,  amidst  such  deep  gloom  over 
his  soul,  was  a  remarkable  instance  of  obedience 
to  that  word  of  God  by  the  prophet,  "Who  is 
among  you  that  feareth  the  Lord,  that  obeyeth 
the  voice  of  his  servant,  that  walketh  in  darkness* 
and  hath  no  light  ?  Let  him  trust  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord,  and  stay  upon  his  God."  Bunyan  could 
now  say,  in  a  passage  in  the  forty-fourth  Psalm, 
brought  powerfully  to  remembrance,  "  Though 


94  BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION. 

thou  hast  sore  broken  us  in  the  place  of  dragons, 
and  covered  us  with  the  shadow  of  death,  yet  our 
heart  is  not  turned  back,  neither  have  our  steps  de- 
clined from  thy  way."  This  indeed,  is  the  truest 
sign  of  conversion,  to  venture  all  on  Christ,  and  re- 
solve to  serve  him  come  what  may. 

When  a  soul  comes  to  this  determination,  it  al- 
ways finds  light.  And  so  it  was  with  Bunyan  ;  and 
he  says  himself,  "  I  would  not  have  been  without 
this  trial  for  much.  I  am  comforted  every  time  I 
think  of  it ;  and  I  hope  I  shall  bless  God  forever 
for  the  teaching  I  have  had  by  it."  In  this  trial, 
Bunyan  may  in  truth  be  said  to  have  been  added  to 
the  number  of  the  witnesses  in  the  Revelations, 
who  overcame  the  Tempter  by  the  blood  of  the 
Lamb,  and  the  word  of  their  testimony ;  and  they 
loved  not  their  lives  unto  the  death.  For  Bunyan 
was  as  if  he  had  been  brought  to  the  scaffold,  and 
there  taken  the  leap  into  eternity  in  the  dark. 
This  passage  in  Bunyan's  prison  experience  re- 
minds us  powerfully  of  Christian's  woful  confine- 
ment in  the  dungeon  of  Giant  Despair's  castle  from 
Wednesday  morning  till  Saturday  night,  and  of  his 
sudden  and  joyful  deliverance  ;  nor  can  there  be  any 
doubt  that  some  of  the  lights  and  shades  in  that  beau- 
tiful passage  grew  out  of  those  melancholy  weeks, 
when  Bunyan's  soul  as  well  as  his  body,  was  in  prison. 
Afterwards,  his  soul  was  unfettered,  and  then  what 
cared  he  for  the  confinement  of  his  body  ?  He 
could  say,  in  an  infinitely  higher  sense  than  some 
of  his  enemies  in  the  celebrated  song  of  his  times, 

"  Stone  walls  do  not  a  prison  make, 

Nor  iron  bars  a  cage  ; 
Minds  innocent  and  quiet  take 
That  for  a  hermitage." 


BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION.^  95 

In  Bunyan's  prison  meditations,  he  describes 
most  forcibly,  in  his  own  rude  but  vigorous  rhymes, 
the  freedom  and  triumph  of  his  soul. 

"  For  though  men  keep  my  outward  man 

Within  their  locks  and  bars, 

Yet  by  the  faith  of  Christ  I  can 

Mount  higher  than  the  stars. 

Tis  not  the  baseness  of  this  state 

Doth  hide  us  from  God's  face ; 
He  frequently,  both  soon  and  late, 

Doth  visit  us  with  grace. 

We  change  our  drossy  dust  for  gold, 

From  death  to  life  we  fly ; 
We  let  go  shadows,  and  take  hold 

Of  immortality. 

These  be  the  men  that  God  doth  count 

Of  high  and  noble  mind  ; 
These  be  the  men  that  do  surmount 

What  you  in  nature  find. 

First  they  do  conquer  their  own  hearts, 

All  worldly  fears,  and  then 
Also  the  Devil's  fiery  darts, 

And  persecuting  men. 

They  conquer  when  they  thus  do  fall, 

They  kill  when  they  do  die ; 
They  overcome  then  most  of  all, 

And  get  the  victory." 

Such  poetry  would  have  been  noble,  from  any  man 
of  genius,  but  it  came  from  Bunyan's  heart ;  it  was 
his  own  experience.  "I  never  had  in  my  life,"  he 
says,  "  so  great  an  inlet  into  the  word  as  now. 
Those  scriptures  that  I  saw  nothing  in  before,  are 
made  in  this  place  and  state  to  shine  upon  me. 
Jesus  Christ  also  was  never  more  real  arid  appa- 
rent than  now  ;  here  I  have,  seen  and  felt  him  in- 
deed." Three  or  four  sweet  and  thrilling  scrip- 
tures were  a  great  refreshment  to  him,  especially 
that  sweet  fourteenth  of  John,  "  Let  not  your 
heart  be  troubled,"  &c.,  and  that  of  John  xvi.  33, 


96  BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION. 

<4  In  the  world  ye  shall  have  tribulation,  but  be  of 
good  cheer ;  I  have  overcome  the  world  ;'?  and  also 
that  inspiring,  animating  word,  "  We  are  come  un- 
to Mount  Sion,"  &c.  Sometimes,  when  Bunyan 
was  "  in  the  savor"  of  these  scriptures,  he  was  able 
to  laugh  at  destruction,  and  to  fear  neither  the  horse 
nor  his  rider.  "  I  have  had  sweet  sights  of  the 
forgiveness  of  my  sins  in  this  place,  and  of  my 
being  with  Jesus  in  another  world.  O  the  Mount 
Sion,  the  heavenly  Jerusalem,  the  innumerable 
company  of  angels,  and  God  the  Judge  of  all,  and 
the  spirits  of  just  men  made  perfect,  and  Jesus  the 
Mediator,  have  been  sweet  unto  me  in  this  place  ! 
I  have  seen  that  here,  which  I  am  persuaded  I  shall 
never,  while  in  this  world,  be  able  to  express.  I  have 
seen  a  truth  in  this  scripture,  "  Whom  having  not 
seen  ye  love  ;  in  whom,  though  now  you  see  him 
not,  yet  believing,  ye  rejoice  with  joy  unspeakable, 
and  fall  of  glory." 

"  I  never  knew  what  it  was  for  God  to  stand  by 
me  at  all  times,  and  at  every  offer  of  Satan  to  af- 
flict me,  as  I  have  found  him  since  I  came  in  hither  ; 
for  look  how  fears  have  presented  themselves,  so 
have  supports  and  encouragements  ;  yea,  when  I 
have  started  even  as  it  were  at  nothing  else  but  my 
shadow,  yet  God,  as  being  very  tender  of  me,  hath 
not  suffered  me  to  be  molested,  but  would,  with  one 
scripture  or  another,  strengthen  me  against  all, 
insomuch  that  I  have  often  said,  were  it  lawful, 
1  could  pray  for  greater  trouble  for  the  greater  com- 
fort's sake."  Bunyan  could  now  say  with  Paul, 
that  as  his  sufferings  for  Christ  abounded,  so  his 
consolation  in  Christ  abounded  likewise. 


BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION.  97 

Bunyan  had  thought  much  upon  these  things  be- 
fore he  went  to  prison  ;  for  he  saw  the  storm  coming, 
and  had  some  preparatory  considerations  "  warm 
upon  his  heart."  Like  a  prudent,  skilful,  fearless 
mariner,  he  took  in  sail  at  the  signs  of  the  hur- 
ricane, and  made  all  tight  aloft,  by  prayer,  and  by 
consideration  of  the  things  which  are  unseen  and 
eternal.  He  kept  on  his  course,  turning  neither  to 
the  right  hand  nor  the  left,  in  his  Master's  ser- 
vice, but  he  made  all  ready  for  the  tempest,  and 
familiarized  himself  to  the  worst  that  might  come, 
be  it  the  prison,  the  pillory,  or  banishment,  or 
death.  With  a  magnanimity  and  grandeur  of  philo- 
sophy which  none  of  the  princes  or  philosophers,  or 
sufferers  of  this  world  ever  dreamed  of,  he  con- 
cluded that  "  the  best  way  to  go  through  suffering, 
is  to  trust  in  God  through  Christ  as  touching  the 
world  to  come  ;  and  as  touching  this  world  to  be 
dead  to  it,  to  give  up  all  interest  in  it,  to  have  the  sen- 
tence of  death  in  ourselves  and  admit  it,  to  count  the 
grave  my  house,  to  make  my  bed  in  darkness,  and 
to  say  to  corruption,  thou  art  my  father  ;  and  to  the 
worm,  thou  art  my  mother  and  sister ;  that  is,  to 
familiarize  these  things  to  me." 

With  this  preparation,  when  the  storm  suddenly 
fell,  though  the  ship  at  first  bowed  and  labored  hea- 
vily under  it,  yet  how  like  a  bird  did  she  afterwards 
flee  before  it.  It  reminds  me  of  those  two  lines  of 
Wesley, 

"  The  tempests  that  rise, 
Shall  gloriously  hurry  our  souls  to  the  skies  !' 

So  Bunyan's  bark  sped  onward,  amidst  howling 
gales,  with  rattling  hail  and  thunder,  but  onward, 
still  onward,  and  upward,  still  upward,  to  heaven  ! 

13 


98  BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION. 

There  is  one  passage  in  his  experience  at  this 
time,  which  is  deeply  affecting,  as  showing  what 
he  had  to  break  from  and  to  leave,  and  in  what 
difficult  circumstances,  as  well  as  to  encounter,  in 
going  to  prison,  and  perhaps  to  death.  "  Notwith- 
standing these  spiritual  helps,"  he  says,  "  I  found 
myself  a  man  encompassed  with  infirmities.  The 
parting  with  my  wife  and  poor  children  hath  often 
been  to  me,  in  this  place,  as  the  pulling  the  flesh 
from  my  bones  ;  and  that  riot  only  because  I  am 
somewhat  too  fond  of  these  mercies  ;  but  also 
because  I  should  have  often  brought  to  my  mind 
the  many  hardships,  miseries  and  wants  that  my 
poor  family  was  likewise  to  meet  with  ;  especially 
my  poor  Hind  child,  who  lay  nearer  my  heart  than 
all  I  had  beside.  Oh,  the  thoughts  of  the  hardships 
I  thought  my  blind  one  might  go  under,  would 
break  my  heart  to  pieces.  Poor  child,  thought  1, 
what  sorrow  art  thou  like  to  have  for  thy  portion  in 
this  world  !  Thou  must  be  beaten,  must  beg,  suffer 
hunger,  cold,  nakedness,  and  a  thousand  calami- 
ties, though  I  cannot  now  endure  the  wind  shall 
blow  upon  thee !  But  yet,  recalling  myself, 
thought  I,  I  must  venture  you  all  with  God,  though 
it  goeth  to  the  quick  to  leave  you.  Oh,  I  saw  in 
this  condition  I  was  as  a  man  who  is  pulling  down 
his  house  upon  the  head  of  his  wife  and  children  ; 
yet,  thought  I,  I  must  do  it,  I  must  do  it.  And  now, 
I  thought  on  those  two  milch  kine,  that  were  to 
carry  the  ark  of  God  into  another  country,  to  leave 
their  calves  behind  them." 

Nothing  could  be  more  touching  than  this  art- 
less picture  of  Bunyan's  domestic  tenderness,  es- 


BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION.  99 

pecially  of  the  father's  affection  for  his  poor 
blind  child.  If  any  thing  could  have  tempted  him 
from  duty ;  if  any  thing  could  have  allured  him  to 
conform  against  his  conscience,  it  had  been  this. 
But  the  Scriptures  and  the  love  of  Christ  supported 
him  ;  and  he  who  could  venture  to  die  for  Christ, 
even  while  his  soul  was  in  darkness,  could  also 
trust  in  the  promise,  "  Leave  thy  fatherless  chil- 
dren ;  I  will  preserve  them  alive ;  and  let  thy 
widow  trust  in  me.  Verily,  it  shall  go  well  with  thy 
remnant."  So,  by  divine  grace,  Bunyan  overcame 
this  temptation  also. 

And  now,  having  followed  this  instructive  picture 
of  Bunyan' s  conflicts,  partly  while  under  fear  of 
prison  and  of  death,  laying  our  tracery,  as  it  were, 
over  his  own  deeply  engraven  lines,  to  make  it 
accurate,  we  come  next  to  his  own  account  of  his 
commitment,  which  is  one  of  the  most  humorous, 
characteristic,  and  instructive  pieces  in  the  English 
language.  This  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  "  Grace 
Abounding,"  but  stands  by  itself  in  a  tract  en- 
titled, "  A  Relation  of  the  Imprisonment  of  Mr. 
John  Bunyan,  Minister  of  the  Gospel  at  Bedford,  in 
November,  1660  ;  his  Examination  before  the  Jus- 
tices ;  his  Conference  with  the  Clerk  of  the  Peace  ; 
what  passed  between  the  Judges  and  his  Wife, 
when  she  presented  a  Petition  for  his  Deliverance, 
and  so  forth.  Written  by  himself."  "  I  was 
indicted,"  says  Bunyan,  "  for  an  upholder  and 
maintainer  of  unlawful  assemblies  and  conventi- 
cles, and  for  not  conforming  to  the  national  wor- 
ship of  the  Church  of  England  ;  and  after  some 
conference  there  with  the  justices,  they  taking  my 


100  BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION. 

plain  dealing  with  them  for  a  confession,  as  they 
termed  it,  of  the  indictment,  did  sentence  me  to  a 
perpetual  banishment,  because  I  refused  to  conform. 
So  being  again  delivered  up  to  the  jailor's  hands,  I 
was  had  home  to  prison,  and  there  have  lain  now 
complete  "twelve  years,  waiting  to  see  what  God 
would  suffer  these  men  to  do  with  me" 

It    is    a   striking    phraseology,  which    Bunyan 
uses,  he  "  was  had  home  to  prison  ;"  it  was  indeed 
a  home  to  him,  for  God  made  it  such,  sweeter,  by 
divine  grace,  than   any  earthly    home  in  his  pil- 
grimage.    He  had  been  preaching  for  years  when 
he  was  first  taken,  which  was  upon  the  12th  of 
November,  1660.     He  had  engaged,  if  the    Lord 
permitted,  to  come  and  teach  some  of  the  people 
who  desired  it  on  that  day ;  but  the  justice  of  the 
peace    hearing  of  it,   issued  his  warrant  to  take 
Bunyan,  and  mean  time  to  keep  a  strong  watch 
about  the  house,  "  as  if,"  says  Bunyan,  "  we  that 
were    to  meet  together  in  that  place,  did  intend 
to  do  some  fearful  business,  to  the  destruction  of 
the  country."     Yea  they  could  scarce  have  been 
more  alarmed  and  vigilant,  if  there  had  been  ru- 
mor of  a  Popish  gunpowder  plot  on  foot.    "  When, 
alas  !   the  constable,  when  he  came  in,  found  us 
only  with  our  Bibles  in  our  hands,  ready  to  speak 
and  hear  the  word  of  God  ;  for  we  were  just  about 
to  begin  our  exercise.      Nay,  we  had   begun  in 
prayer  for  the  blessing  of  God  upon  our  oppor- 
tunity, intending  to  have  preached  the  word  of  the 
Lord  unto  them  there  present ;   but  the  constable 
coming  in,  prevented  us." 

Bunyan  might  have  escaped  had  he  chosen,  for 


BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION.  101 

he  had  fair  warning,  but  he  reasoned  nobly,  that  as 
he  had  showed  himself  hearty  and  courageous  in 
his  preaching,  and  made  it  his  business  to  encourage 
others,  if  he  should  now  run,  his  weak  and  newly 
converted  brethren  would  certainly  think  he  was 
not  so  strong  in  deed  as  in  word.  "  Also,  I  feared 
that  if  I  should  run,  now  that  there  was  a  warrant 
out  for  me,  I  might,  by  so  doing,  make  them  afraid 
to  stand,  when  great  words  only  should  be  spoken 
to  them.  Besides,  I  thought  that  seeing  God  of 
his  mercy  should  choose  me  to  go  upon  the  forlorn 
hope  in  this  country  ;  that  is,  to  be  the  first  that 
should  be  opposed  for  the  gospel ;  if  I  should  fly, 
it  might  be  a  discouragement  to  the  whole  body  that 
might  follow  after.  And  further,  I  thought  the  world 
thereby  would  take  occasion  at  my  cowardliness  to 
have  blasphemed  the  gospel,  and  to  have  had  some 
grounds  to  suspect  worse  of  me  and  my  profession 
than  I  deserved."  So  Bunyan  staid,  with  full  resolu- 
tion, and  began  the  meeting.  And  when  brought 
before  the  justice,  and  questioned  as  to  what  he  did 
there,  and  why  he  did  not  content  himself  with  fol- 
lowing his  calling,  for  it  was  against  the  law  that 
such  as  he  should  be  admitted  to  do  as  he  did  ; 
he  answered,  that  the  intent  of  his  coming  thither, 
and  to  other  places,  was  to  instruct  and  counsel 
people  to  forsake  their  sins,  and  close  in  with  Christ, 
lest  they  did  miserably  perish,  and  that  he  could  do 
both  these  without  confusion,  to  wit,  follow  his 
calling,  and  preach  the  word  also. 

"  Now,"  says  Bunyan,  in  a  passage  where  you 
have  the  germ  of  many  a  character  that  afterwards 
figured  in  the  pages  of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress, 


102  BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION. 

"  Now,  while  my  mittimus  was  a  making,  the  jus- 
tice was  withdrawn,  and  in  comes  an  old  enemy  to 
the  truth,  Dr.  Lindale,  who  when  he  was  come  in, 
fell  to  taunting  at  me,  with  many  reviling  terms. 
To  whom  I  answered,  that  I  did  not  come  thither 
to  talk  with  him,  but  with  the  justice.  Whereat  he 
supposing  that  I  had  nothing  to  say  for  myself,  tri- 
umphed as  if  he  had  got  the  victory,  charging  and 
condemning  me  for  meddling  with  that  for  which  I 
could  show  no  warrant,  and  asked  me  if  I  had 
taken  the  oaths,  and  if  I  had  not,  it  was  pity  but 
that  I  should  be  sent  to  prison.  I  told  him  that 
if  I  was  minded,  I  could  answer  to  any  sober 
question  put  to  me.  He  then  urged  me  again, 
how  I  could  prove  it  lawful  for  me  to  preach, 
with  a  great  deal  of  confidence  of  the  victory.  But 
at  last,  because  he  should  see  that  I  could  answer 
him  if  I  listed,  I  cited  to  him  that  in  Peter,  which 
saith,  "  As  every  man  hath  received  the  gift,  even  so 
let  him  minister  the  same." 

Lindale.    Ay,  saith  he,  to  whom  is  that  spoken  ? 

Bunyan.  To  whom,  said  I,  why,  to  every  man 
that  hath  received  a  gift  from  God.  Mark,  saith 
the  apostle,  as  every  man  hath  received  the  gift 
from  God  ;  and  again,  You  may  all  prophesy  one 
by  one.  Whereat  the  man  was  a  little  stopt,  and 
went  a  softlier  pace.  But  not  being  willing  to  lose 
the  day,  he  began  again,  and  said  : 

Lind.  Indeed,  I  do  remember  that  I  have  read 
of  one  Alexander,  a  copper-smith,  who  did  much 
oppose  and  disturb  the  apostles  :  (aiming,  it  is  like, 
at  me,  because  I  was  a  tinker.) 

Bun.  To  which  I  answered,  that  I  also  had  read 


BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION.  103 

of  very  many  priests  and  Pharisees,  that  had  their 
hands  in  the  blood  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

Lind.  Ay  saith  he,  and  you  are  one  of  those 
Scribes  and  Pharisees,  for  you,  with  a  pretence, 
make  long  prayers  to  devour  widows'  houses. 

Bun.  I  answered,  that  if  he  got  no  more  by 
preaching  and  praying  than  I  had  done,  he  would 
not  be  so  rich  as  now  he  was.  But  that  scripture 
coming  into  my  mind,  "  Answer  not  a  fool  accord- 
ing to  his  folly,"  I  was  as  sparing  of  my  speech 
as  I  could  without  prejudice  to  truth. 

After  this  there  was  another  examination  with 
one  Mr.  Foster,  of  Bedford,  who  tried  hard  to  per- 
suade Bunyan  to  promise  that  he  would  leave  off 
preaching,  in  which  case  he  should  be  acquitted. 
Bunyan's  honest,  straight-forward  truth,  good  sense 
and  mother-wit,  answered  as  good  a  purpose  with 
this  Mr.  Foster,  as  it  did  with  that "  old  enemy,"  Dr. 
Lindale.  Mr.  Foster  told  Bunyan  there  were  none 
that  heard  him  but  a  company  of  foolish  people. 

Bun.  I  told  him  that  there  were  the  wise  as 
well  as  the  foolish  that  did  hear  me ;  and  again, 
those  that  are  most  commonly  counted  foolish  by 
the  world,  are  the  wisest  before  God.  Also,  that 
God  had  rejected  the  wise  and  mighty  and  noble, 
and  chosen  the  foolish  and  the  base. 

Foster.  He  told  me  that  I  made  people  neglect 
their  calling  ;  and  that  God  hath  commanded  peo- 
ple to  work  six  days,  and  serve  him  on  the  seventh. 

Bun.  I  told  him  that  it  was  the  duty  of  people, 
rich  and  poor,  to  look  out  for  their  souls  on  those 
days,  as  well  as  their  bodies  ;  and  that  God  would 
have  his  people  exhort  one  another  daily,  while  it 
is  called  to-day. 


104  BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION. 

Post.  He  said  again,  that  there  were  none  but 
a  company  of  poor,  simple,  ignorant  people  that 
came. 

Bun.  I  told  him  that  the  foolish  and  the  igno- 
rant had  most  need  of  teaching  and  information  ; 
and  therefore  it  would  be  profitable  for  me  to  go  on 
in  that  work. 

Post.  Well,  said  he,  to  conclude,  but  will  you 
promise  that  you  will  not  call  the  people  together  any 
more,  and  then  you  may  be  released  and  go  home. 

Bun.  I  told  him  that  I  durst  say  no  more  than  I 
had  said  ;  for  I  durst  not  leave  off  that  work  which 
God  had  called  me  to.  If  my  preaching  might 
be  said  to  call  the  people  together,  I  durst  not  say 
that  I  would  not  call  them  together. 

Foster  upon  this  told  the  justice  that  he  must 
send  Bunyan  to  prison  ;  and  so  to  prison  he  went, 
nothing  daunted,  but  singing  and  making  melody 
in  his  heart  unto  the  Lord.  After  this  follows  an 
inimitably  rich  and  humorous  dialogue,  which  Bun- 
yan called,  The  Sum  of  my  Examination  before 
Justice  Keelin,  Justice  Chester,  Justice  Blundale, 
Justice  Beecher  and  Justice  Snagg.  These  men's 
names  are  immortalized  in  a  way  they  never 
dreamed  of;  nor  can  any  one  read  this  scene, 
and  compare  it  with  the  trial  of  Faithful  in  the 
Pilgrim's  Progress,  and  not  see  what  rich  ma- 
terials Bunyan  was  now  gathering,  in  the  provi- 
dence of  God,  out  of  his  own  experience,  for  his 
future  work.  These  persons  are  just  as  certainly 
to  be  detected  in  Bunyan's  sketches  of  the  court, 
in  the  town  of  Vanity  Fair,  as  Sancho  Panza 
whenever  he  appears  in  any  part  of  Don  Quixote. 


BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION.  105 

It  was  an  almost  unconscious  operation  of  quiet,  but 
keen  satire,  when  this  scene  remoulded  its  materials 
afterwards  in  Bunyan's  imagination.  The  extent 
of  the  indictment  against  Bunyan  was  as  follows  : 
That  John  Bunyan,  of  the  town  of  Bedford, 
laborer,  being  a  person  of  such  and  such  conditions, 
he  hath,  since  such  a  time,  devilishly  and  perni- 
ciously abstained  from  coming  to  church  to  hear 
divine  service,  and  is  a  common  upholder  of 
several  unlawful  meetings  and  conventicles,  to  the 
great  disturbance  and  distraction  of  the  good  sub- 
jects of  this  kingdom,  contrary  to  the  laws  of  our 
sovereign  Lord  the  King.  When  this  was  read,  the 
clerk  of  the  sessions  said  to  Bunyan,  What  say  you 
to  this  ? 

Bunyan.  I  said  that  as  to  the  first  part  of  it,  I 
was  a  common  frequenter  of  the  church  of  God, 
and  was  also  by  grace,  a  member  with  those  people, 
over  whom  Christ  was  the  head. 

Keelin.  But,  saith  Justice  Keelin,  who  was  the 
judge  in  that  court,  Do  you  come  to  church,  you 
know  what  I  mean,  to  the  parish  church  to  hear 
divine  service  1 

Bun.  I  answered  no,  I  did  not. 

Keel.  He  asked  me  why. 

Bun.  I  said,  because  I  did  not  find  it  commanded 
in  the  word  of  God. 

Keel.  He  said  we  were  commanded  to  pray. 

Bun.  I  said,  but  not  by  the  Common  Prayer 
Book. 

Keel.  He  said,  how  then  ? 

Bun.  I  said,  with  the  Spirit.  As  the  apostle 
saith,  I  will  pray  with  the  Spirit  with  understanding 

14 


106  BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION. 

Keel.  He  said,  we  might  pray  with  the  Spirit  with 
understanding,  and  with  the  Common  Prayer  Book 
also. 

Bun.  I  said  that  those  prayers  in  the  Common 
Prayer  Book  were  such  as  were  made  by  other 
men,  and  not  by  the  motions  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
within  our  hearts ;  and,  as  I  said,  the  apostle  saith 
he  will  pray  with  the  Spirit  and  with  under- 
standing, not  witfi  the  Spirit  and  the  Common 
Prayer  Book. 

Another  Justice..  What  do  you  count  prayer? 
Do  you  think  it  is  to  say  a  few  words  over, 
before  or  among  a  people  ? 

Bun.  I  said  not  so ;  for  men  might  have  many 
elegant  or  excellent  words,  and  yet  not  pray  at  all ; 
but  when  a  man  prayeth,  he  doth,  through  a  sense 
of  those  things  which  he  wants,  which  sense  is  be- 
gotten by  the  Spirit,  pour  out  his  heart  before  God 
through  Christ ;  though  his  words  be  not  so  many 
and  so  excellent  as  others. 

Justices.  They  said  that  was  true. 

Bun.  I  said  this  might  be  done  without  the  Com- 
mon Prayer  Book. 

There  was  a  strange  mixture  of  candor  and 
bitterness,  in  these  justices,  for  they  acknow- 
ledged the  truth  of  some  things  that  Bunyan 
said,  and  that  very  freely,  while  they  were  blas- 
phemous in  other  things,  as  we  shall  see.  Bun- 
yan's  own  argument  against  the  Common  Prayer 
Book  would  not  be  admitted  as  valid  by  many 
out  of  the  Episcopal  Church  as  well  as  in  it ;  but 
his  argument  against  the  enforcing  of  it  on  the 
conscience  is  incontrovertible,  as  well  as  his  own 


BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION.  107 

candid  and  tolerant  spirit  towards  those  who  pre- 
ferred to  use  it.  "  Let  them  use  it,  if  they  choose," 
said  he,  "  we  would  not  keep  them  from  it ;  only, 
for  our  part,  we  can  pray  to  God  without  it ; 
and  all  we  ask  is  the  liberty  of  so  praying  and 
preaching."  Could  any  thing  be  more  fair,  equi- 
table or  generous  than  this  I  The  same  we  say 
now  to  those  who  assert,  that  we  cannot  worship 
God  aright  without  episcopacy,  confirmation  and  a 
liturgy,  and  who  arrogantly  say  that  without  these 
things  we  are  not  of  the  true  church,  and  are 
neither  ministers  nor  flocks  of  Jesus  Christ ;  we 
say  to  those  who  are  guilty  of  such  unchristian 
conduct,  Use  you  your  liturgy,  and  love  it  as  much 
as  you  please,  and  we  will  agree  with  you,  that  for 
those  who  choose  a  liturgy,  it  is,  with  some  great 
faults,  an  admirable  composition  ;  but,  dare  not  to 
impose  it  upon  us  ;  be  not  guilty  of  the  great  in- 
tolerance and  wickedness  of  unchurching  and  ana- 
thematizing others,  because  they  do  not  use  a 
liturgy  nor  hold  to  episcopacy ;  stand  not  by  your- 
selves and  say,  I  am  holier  than  thou  by  the  apos- 
tolical succession,  and  episcopacy,  and  the  liturgy  ! 
Above  all,  if  you  do  these  things,  expect  to  be 
met  with  severity  and  indignation,  and  accuse  no 
man  of  bitterness,  who  defends,  or  because  he  de- 
fends the  church  and  the  ministry  of  Christ  from 
your  unrighteous  assumptions. 

Bunyan's  chief  reason  for  not  using  the  Common 
Prayer  Book  was,  that  it  is  not  commanded  in  the 
scriptures.  "  Show  me,"  said  he,  "  the  place  in 
the  epistles,  where  the  Common  Prayer  Book  is 
written,  or  one  text  of  scripture  that  commands 


BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION. 

me  to  read  it,  and  I  will  use  it.  But  yet,  notwith- 
standing, said  he,  they  that  have  a  mind  to  use  it, 
they  have  their  liberty  ;  that  is,  I  would  not  keep 
it  from  them,  or  them  from  it ;  but  for  our  parts, 
we  can  pray  to  God  without  it.  Blessed  be  his 
name. 

With  that  one  of  them  said,  Who  is  your  God, 
Beelzebub  ?  Moreover  they  often  said  that  I  was 
possessed  with  the  spirit  of  delusion  and  of  the 
devil.  All  which  sayings  I  passed  over,  the  Lord 
forgive  them  !  And  further,  I  said,  Blessed  be  the 
Lord  for  it,  we  are  encouraged  to  meet  together, 
and  to  pray,  and  exhort  one  another :  for  we  have 
had  the  comfortable  presence  of  God  among  us, 
forever  blessed  be  his  holy  name. 

Justice  Keelin  called  this  pedler's  French,  say- 
ing that  I  must  leave  off  my  canting.  The  Lord 
open  his  eyes. 

Bun.  I  said  that  we  ought  to  exhort  one  another 
daily,  while  it  is  called  to-day. 

Keel.  Justice  Keelin  said  that  I  ought  not  to 
preach  ;  and  asked  me  where  I  had  my  authority! 

Bun.  I  said  that  I  would  prove  that  it  was 
lawful  for  me,  and  such  as  I  am,  to  preach  the 
word  of  God. 

Keel.  He  said  unto  me,  By  what  scripture  ? 

Bun.  I  said,  By  that  in  the  first  epistle  of 
Peter,  the  fourth  chapter,  the  eleventh  verse  ;  and 
Acts  the  eighteenth,  with  other  scriptures,  which 
he  would  not  suffer  me  to  mention.  But  hold, 
said  he,  not  so  many ;  which  is  the  first? 

Bun.  I  said  this  :  "As  every  man  hath  received 
the  gift,  so  let  him  minister  the  same  one  to  ano- 


BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION.  109 

ther,  as  good  stewards  of  the  manifold  grace  of 
God  ;  if  any  man  speak,  let  him  speak  as  the 
oracles  of  God." 

Keel.  He  said,  Let  me  a  little  open  that  scripture 
to  you.  As  every  man  hath  received  the  gift ;  that 
is,  said  he,  as  every  man  hath  received  a  trade,  so 
let  him  follow  it.  If  any  man  hath  received  a  gift 
of  tinkering,  as  thou  hast  done,  let  him  follow  his 
tinkering  ;  and  so  other  men  their  trades,  and  the 
divine  his  calling,  &c. 

Bun.  Nay,  sir,  said  I,  but  it  is  most  clear  that 
the  apostle  speaks  here  of  preaching  the  word  ; 
if  you  do  but  compare  both  the  verses  together, 
the  next  verse  explains  this  gift,  what  it  is  ;  saying, 
"  If  any  man  speak,  let  him  speak  as  the  oracles  of 
God  ;"  so  that  it  is  plain  that  the  Holy  Ghost  doth 
not,  in  this  place,  so  much  exhort  to  civil  callings, 
as  to  the  exercising  of  those  gifts  that  we  have 
received  from  God.  I  would  have  gone  on,  but  he 
would  not  give  me  leave. 

Keel.  He  said,  we  might  do  it  in  our  families, 
but  not  otherwise. 

Bun.  I  said,  if  it  was  lawful  to  do  good  to 
some,  it  was  lawful  to  do  good  to  more.  If  it  was 
a  good  duty  to  exhort  our  families,  it  is  good  to 
exhort  others;  but  if  they  hold  it  a  sin  to  meet 
together  to  seek  the  face  of  God,  and  exhort  one 
another  to  follow  Christ,  I  should  sin  still,  for  so  we 
should  do. 

Keel.  Then  you  confess  the  indictment,  do  you 
not? 

Bun.  This  I  confess,  we  have  had  many  meet- 
ings together,  both  to  pray  to  God,  and  to  exhort 


110  BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION. 

one  another,  and  that  we  had  the  sweet  comforting 
presence  of  the  Lord  among  us,  for  our  encourage- 
ment, blessed  be  his  name  therefor.  I  confess 
myself  guilty  no  otherwise. 

Keel.  Then,  said  he,  hear  your  judgment.  You 
must  be  had  back  again  to  prison,  and  there  lie 
for  three  months  following ;  and  at  three  months' 
end,  if  you  do  not  submit  to  go  to  church  to  hear 
divine  service,  and  leave  your  preaching,  you  must 
be  banished  the  realm ;  and  if,  after  such  a  day 
as  shall  be  appointed  you  to  be  gone,  you  shall 
be  found  in  this  realm,  or  be  found  to  come  over 
again  without  special  license  from  the  king,  you 
must  stretch  by  the  neck  for  it,  I  tell  you  plainly. 
And  so  he  bid  my  jailer  have  me  away. 

Bun.  I  told  him,  as  to  this  matter  I  was  at  a 
point  with  him  ;  for  if  I  was  out  of  prison  to-day,  I 
wrould  preach  the  gospel  again  to  morrow,  by  the 
help  of  God. 

Thus  ended  the  examination  and  commitment 
of  John  Bunyan.  This  answer  of  his  is  equal 
in  nobleness  to  any  thing  recorded  of  Luther.  IF 

I  WAS  OUT  OF  THE  PRISON  TO-DAY,  I  WOULD  PREACH 
THE  GOSPEL  AGAIN  TO-MORROW,  BY  THE  HELP  OF 

GOD.  There  was  neither  obstinacy  nor  vain-glory 
in  it,  but  a  calm,  steadfast  determination  to  obey 
God  rather  than  man.  Bunyan  had  good  ex- 
amples for  his  steadfastness  and  courage.  The 
scene  reminds  us  more  than  almost  any  thing 
else,  of  certain  events  in  the  Acts  of  Jhe  Apostles. 
What  shall  we  do  to  these  men,  said  the  Jewish 
rulers.  That  it  spread  no  further  among  the 
people,  let  us  straitly  threaten  them,  that  they 


BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION.  Ill 

speak  henceforth  to  no  man  in  this  name.  And 
they  called  them,  and  commanded  them  not  to 
speak  at  all,  nor  teach  in  the  name  of  Jesus.  But 
Peter  and  John  answered  and  said  unto  them, 
Whether  it  be  right  in  the  sight  of  God  to  hearken 
unto  you  more  than  unto  God,  judge  ye.  For  we 
cannot  but  speak  the  things  which  we  have  seen 
and  heard.  And  again  they  spake;  and  again 
they  were  thrust  into  prison ;  and  again  they  spake ; 
and  again  the  council  and  high  priest  charged  them, 
Did  we  not  straitly  command  you  that  ye  should 
not  teach  in  this  name  ?  So  they  beat  the  apostles, 
and  commanded  that  they  should  not  speak  in  the 
name  of  Jesus,  and  let  them  go.  And  what  next  ? 
Why,  just  this  :  And  daily  in  the  temple,  and  in 
every  house,  they  ceased  not  to  teach,  and  to  preach 
Jesus  Christ. 

In  all  these  trying  and  vexing  examinations, 
Bunyan  appears  to  the  greatest  advantage,  both  as 
a  man  and  a  Christian.  If  he  sometimes  answered 
a  fool  according  to  his  folly,  it  was  never  with 
railing  or  bitterness  ;  and  with  all  his  prejudices 
against  the  Common  Prayer  Book,  he  has  not  one 
word  to  say  against  those  who  choose  it,  or  con- 
scientiously use  it,  or  against  their  religion.  And 
now,  to  those  who  may  think  it  strange  that  so 
strong  a  prejudice  should  have  prevailed  against  that 
book,  so  that  men  would  rather  go  to  prison  than 
use  it,  we  would  simply  say,  W^hat  think  you  would 
be  your  feelings  in  regard  to  the  Presbyterian 
Book  of  Discipline,  if  you  were  compelled  by  lawr 
to  use  it,  and  abide  by  it,  or  else  have  no  religion  at 
all  t  If  the  strong  grasp  of  civil  and  ecclesiastical 


112  BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION. 

tyranny  were  laid  upon  you,  and  your  face  were 
pressed  in  the  dust  beneath  that  book,  and  it  were 
said  to  you,  Either  abide  by  this  and  obey  it,  or 
you  shall  neither  preach  nor  teach,  nor  hold  any 
civil  office  ;  nay,  you  shall  be  thrust  into  prison,  or 
banished,  and  if  found  returning,  you  shall  be 
hanged  by  the  neck  till  you  are  dead !  I  say, 
what  think  you  would  be  your  feelings  towards  that 
book  ?  Why,  if  it  were  better  than  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress  itself,  you  would  abhor  it,  and  I  had  al- 
most said,  you  would  do  well  to  hate  it ;  and  you 
would,  as  an  instrument  of  pride  and  tyranny. 
Prejudice  against  the  Common  Prayer  Book?  If 
men  wish  to  bring  it  into  disgrace,  let  them  per- 
severe in  their  assumption  that  there  is  no  true 
church,  and  no  true  ministry  without  it.  The  cross 
itself,  the  moment  you  erect  it  into  a  thing  of  wor- 
ship, the  moment  you  put  the  image  in  place  of 
the  thing  signified,  becomes  an  idol,  a  mark  of  sin 
instead  of  glory.  Just  so  it  was  with  the  Brazen 
Serpent.  There  was  a  race  of  Romanists  in  that 
day,  who  kept  it  as  an  object  of  idolatrous  ado- 
ration ;  had  they  been  let  go  on  in  their  absurdities, 
they  would  have  passed  a  law  that  no  person  should 
worship  without  the  Brazen  Serpent.  But  good 
King  Hezekiah,  the  noble  old  royal  image-breaker, 
took,  it,  and  called  it  with  the  utmost  contempt,  a 
piece  of  brass,  Nehustan,  and  burned  it  in  the  fire, 
and  ground  it  to  powder. 

Here  I  am  reminded  of  a  very  beautiful  remark  by 
Mr.  Coleridge,  taken  partly  from  an  old  writer,  that 
an  appropriate  and  seemly  religious  ceremony  is  as 
a  gold  chain  about  the  neck  of  faith  ;  it  at  once 


BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION.  113 

adorns  and  secures  it.  Yes,  says  Mr.  Coleridge, 
but  if  you  draw  it  too  close,  you  strangle  it.  You 
strangle  and  destroy  religion  if  you  make  that  which 
is  not  essential,  and  especially  that  which  is  not 
commanded  in  scripture,  to  be  essential  and  inevi- 
table. And  just  so  with  the  prayer  book,  the  litur- 
gy ;  if  you  seek  to  enforce  it  on  men's  consciences, 
if  you  make  it  essential  to  religion  or  to  the  true 
church,  you  suffocate  and  strangle  your  religion, 
and  instead  of  finding  in  it  a  living  seraph,  it  will 
be  to  you  a  dead  corpse.  Let  no  man  judge  you  in 
regard  to  these  things,  saith  Paul ;  let  no  man  be 
admitted  to  spy  out  and  destroy  your  liberty,  which 
ye  have  in  Christ  Jesus.  Give  no  place  in  subjec- 
tion to  such  an  one,  no,  not  for  an  hour. 

One  of  the  most  instructive  and  important  les- 
sons to  be  drawn  from  this  part  of  Bunyan's  his- 
tory, and  from  the  survey  of  his  times,  is  the  inva- 
luable preciousness  of  that  discipline  of  trial,  which 
God,  in  infinite  wisdom  and  mercy,  has  appointed 
for  his  people,  as  their  pathway  to  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.  We  scarcely  know  how  the  church  of 
Christ  could  have  existed,  or  what  she  would 
have  become,  without  the  purifying  and  ennobling 
fires  of  persecution  to  burn  upon  her.  The  most 
precious  of  her  literary  and  religious  treasures 
have  come  out  of  this  furnace.  The  most 
heavenly  and  inspiring  names  in  the  record  of 
her  living  examples  are  the  names  of  men  whose 
souls  were  purged  from  their  dross  by  just  such  dis- 
cipline, and  perhaps  taken  out  of  their  bodies,  and 
conveyed  in  a  chariot  of  fire  to  heaven.  The  martyr 
literature  of  England,  a  possession  like  which,  in 

15 


114  BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION. 

glory  and  in  value,  no  nation  in  the  world  can  show 
the  counterpart,  grew  out  of  that  fiery  process  upon 
men's  souls ;  it  is  as  gold  seven-fold  purified  in  the 
furnace.  This  book  of  Bunyan's,  the  heavenly 
Pilgrim's  Progress,  grew  out  of  just  such  a  pro 
cess  ;  for  such  is  the  nature  of  adversity  in  the  hand 
of  God,  not  only  to  refine  and  purify,  but  to  bring 
out  hidden  virtue  into  exercise,  and  to  give  to  all 
qualities  so  wrought,  a  power  over  the  universal 
heart  of  man,  such  as  no  learning  can  sway,  and 
no  philosophy  communicate.  The  best  work  of 
Baxter's  was  written  on  the  borders  of  the  grave,  in 
weakness  and  suffering,  having  bidden  the  world 
adieu,  and  being  raised  by  the  magic  of  such  disci- 
pline to  a  mount  of  vision,  from  whence  he  could 
take  a  broad  and  near  survey  of  the  glories  of 
heaven.  And  perhaps  self-denial,  by  the  grace  of 
God,  is  still  more  efficacious  to  raise  a  man's  soul, 
impart  to  it  power,  and  transfigure  it  with  glory, 
than  even  adversity  under  the  hand  of  God.  At 
any  rate,  here  is  the  true  secret  of  greatness.  Vir- 
tue, said  Lord  Bacon,  is  like  precious  odors,  most 
fragrant  when  they  are  either  burned  or  crushed. 
This  is  the  power  of  adversity  with  noble  natures, 
or,  with  the  grace  of  God,  even  in  a  poor  nature. 
But  self-denial  is  a  sort  of  self-burning,  that  makes 
a  purer  fire,  and  more  surely  separates  the  dross 
from  a  man's  being,  than  temptation  and  affliction. 
Indeed,  self-denial  is  the  great  end  in  this  world, 
of  which  temptation  and  affliction  are  the  means ; 
a  man  being  then  most  free  and  powerful,  when 
most  completely  dead  to  self  and  absorbed  in  God 
the  Saviour. 


o 


BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION. 


The  importance  of  suffering  and  self-denial  as 
elements  of  spiritual  discipline,  is  never  by  us 
sufficiently  considered.  If  we  draw  back  from  the 
baptism  of  suffering,  we  are  not  likely  to  be  instru- 
mental in  the  regeneration  either  of  the  soul  or  the 
literature  of  the  world.  How  beautiful  the  language 
of  the  poet  Cowper,  wrung  from  him  by  his  own 
experience  of  anguish, 

"  The  path  of  sorrow,  and  that  path  alone, 
Leads  to  the  land  where  sorrow  is  unknown." 

And  Cowper's  own  intellectual  being,  Cowper's  own 
poetry,  derived  a  strength  and  a  sacred  fire  of  inspi- 
ration from  his  own  sufferings,  which  nothing  else 
could  have  communicated.  Such  has  been  the 
experience  of  multitudes  ;  and  it  is  true  that  the 
very  best  part  of  our  literature  has  come  out  of  that 
same  furnace.  And  must  not  this  be  our  experience 
if  in  our  piety  and  intellect  we  would  retain  the 
elements  of  originality  and  vital  power?  It  was  a 
remark  of  Mr.  Coleridge,  that  cannot  be  too  often 
quoted,  that  Death  only  supplies  the  oil  for  the 
inextinguishable  lamp  of  life  ;  a  great  truth,  which 
is  true  even  before  our  mortal  dissolution  ;  that 
death  to  self,  which  trial,  by  God's  grace,  produces, 
constituting,  even  in  this  world,  the  very  essence  of 
strength,  life  and  glory. 

Another  most  important  and  instructive  lesson  to 
be  drawn  from  this  part  of  Bunyan's  history,  and 
from  our  survey  of  his  times,  is  that  of  the  invalu- 
able preciousness  of  religious  liberty,  and  the  im- 
portance not  only  of  the  possession,  but  of  the  right 
understanding  and  use  of  this  great  blessing.  The 


116  BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION. 

experience  of  ages  has  proved  that  there  is  no 
lesson  so  difficult  for  mankind  to  learn  as  that  of 
true  religious  toleration  ;  for  almost  every  sect  in 
turn,  when  tempted  by  the  power,  has  resorted  to 
the  practice  of  religious  persecution.  Were  it  not 
for  the  seeming  incongruity  of  the  sentiment, 
we  should  say  that  good  men  have  even  taken 
turns  in  burning  one  another ;  though,  to  the 
credit  of  Rome,  it  must  be  said  that  the  baptism  of 
fire  is  almost  exclusively  her  sacrament  for  here- 
tics. Good  men  of  almost  all  persuasions  have  been 
confined  in  prison  for  conscience'  sake. 

Bunyan  was  the  first  person  in  the  reign  of  Charles 
Unpunished  for  the  crime  of  non-conformity.  This, 
in  part,  is  Southey's  own  language,  punished  is  the 
phrase  he  uses  ;  it  should  have  been,  persecuted  for 
the  virtue ;  for  such  it  was  in  Bunyan :  and  any 
palliation  which  could  be  resorted  to  for  the  pur- 
pose of  justifying  an  English  Hierarchy  for  shutting 
up  John  Bunyan  in  prison,  would  also  justify  a 
Romish  Hierarchy  for  burning  Latimer  and  Ridley 
at  the  stake.  Strange,  that  the  lesson  of  religious 
toleration  should  be  one  of  the  last  and  hardest, 
even  for  liberal  minds,  to  learn.  It  cost  long 
time,  instruction  and  discipline  even  for  the  disci- 
ples of  Christ  to  learn  it ;  and  they  never  would 
have  learned  it,  had  not  the  infant  church  been  cut 
loose  from  the  state,  deprived  of  all  possibility  of 
girding  the  secular  arm  with  thunder  in  its  be- 
half. John  had  not  learned  it,  when  he  would 
have  called  down  fire  from  heaven  to  destroy  the 
Samaritans ;  nor  John  nor  his  fellows,  when  they 
forbade  a  faithful  saint  (some  John  Bunyan  of 


BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION.  117 

those  days,  belike,)  from  casting  out  devils,  because 
he  followed  not  them.  And  they  never  would  haVe 
learned  it  had  the  union  of  church  and  state  been 
sanctioned  by  the  Saviour.  Wherever  one  sect  in 
particular  is  united  to  the  state,  the  lesson  of  reli- 
gious toleration  will  not  be  perfectly  learned  ;  nay, 
who  does  not  see  that  toleration  itself,  applied  to 
religion,  implies  the  assumption  of  a  power  that 
ought  not  to  exist,  that  in  itself  is  tyranny.  It 
implies  that  you,  an  earthly  authority,  an  earthly 
power,  say  to  me,  so  condescendingly,  I  permit 
you  the  free  exercise  of  your  religion.  You  permit 
me  1  And  what  authority  have  you  to  permit  me, 
any  more  than  I  to  permit  you  1  God  permits  me, 
God  commands  me  ;  and  do  you  dare  to  say  that 
you  tolerate  me  ?  Who  is  he  that  shall  dare  come 
in  between  me  and  God,  either  to  say  yea  or  nay. 
Your  toleration  itself  is  tyranny,  for  you  have  no 
right  to  meddle  with  the  matter.  But  wherever 
church  and  state  are  united,  then  there  will  be  med- 
dling with  the  matter  ;  and  even  in  this  country,  if 
one  particular  sect  were  to  get  the  patronage  of  the 
state,  there  would  be  an  end  to  our  perfect  religious 
freedom. 

In  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  the  poet  South- 
well, who  wrote  one  of  the  most  exquisitely  beau- 
tiful death-hymns  in  our  language,  and  who  seems 
to  have  been  truly  a  devout  man,  was  put  to  death 
violently  and  publicly,  no  other  crime  being  proved 
against  him,  but  what  he  honestly  and  proudly 
avowed,  that  he  had  come  over  into  England 
simply  and  solely  to  preach  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic religion.  And  he  ought  to  have  been  left 


118  BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION. 

at  liberty  to  preach  it ;  for  if  the  Protestant 
religion  cannot  stand  against  Roman  Catholic 
preaching,  it  ought  to  go  down;  no  religion  is 
worth  having,  or  worth  supporting,  that  needs 
racks,  or  inquisitions,  or  fires  and  faggots  to  sus- 
tain it ;  that  dare  not  or  cannot  meet  its  adver- 
saries on  the  open  battle-field  of  truth ;  no  re- 
ligion is  worth  supporting  that  needs  any  thing 
but  the  truth  and  Spirit  of  God  to  support  it ; 
and  no  establishment  ought  to  be  permitted  to 
stand,  that  stands  by  persecuting  others  ;  nor  any 
church  to  exist,  that  exists  simply  by  unchurching 
others. 

So,  if  the  English  Church  Establishment  dared 
not  consider  herself  safe  without  shutting  up  John 
Bunyan  and  sixty  other  dissenters  with  him  in 
prison,  some  of  them  ministers,  and  some  laymen, 
some  for  preaching  the  gospel,  and  some  for 
hearing  it,  the  English  Church  Establishment  was 
not  worthy  to  be  safe  ;  the  English  Church  Estab- 
lishment was  a  disgrace  and  an  injury  to  the  gospel, 
and  a  disgrace  and  an  injury  to  a  free  people.  No 
church  is  worth  saving  from  destruction,  if  it  has  to 
be  saved  by  the  destruction  of  other  men's  religious 
liberties  ;  nay,  if  that  be  the  case  with  it,  it  ought  to 
go  down,  and  the  sooner  the  better.  No  church  is 
worthy  to  stand,  that  makes  non-conformity  to  its 
rites  and  usages  a  penal  crime;  it  becomes  a  per- 
secuting church  the  moment  it  does  this  ;  for,  sup- 
posing that  every  man,  woman  and  child  in  the 
kingdom  is  kept  from  non-conformity  simply  by 
that  threat,  and  that  through  the  power  of  such 
terror,  there  comes  to  be  never  the  need  to  put 


BUNYANS   EXAMINATION.  119 

such  penal  laws  in  execution,  and  so  never  a  single 
subject  really  molested  or  punished  ;  still  that 
church  is  a  persecuting  church,  and  that  people  a 
persecuted  people,  a  terrified  people,  a  people 
cowed  down,  a  people  in  whose  souls  the  sacred 
fire  of  liberty  is  fast  extinguishing,  a  people 
bound  to  God's  service  by  the  fear  of  men's 
racks.  Such  a  people  can  never  be  free  ;  their 
cowardice  will  forge  their  fetters.  A  people 
who  will  sell  themselves  to  a  church  through  fear 
of  punishment,  will  sell  themselves  to  any  tyrant 
through  the  same  fear ;  nay,  a  people  who  will 
serve  God  through  the  fear  of  punishment,  when 
they  would  not  serve  him  otherwise,  will  serve 
Satan  in  the  same  way. 

If  you  make  nonconformity  a  crime,  you  are 
therefore  a  persecuting  church,  whether  your  name 
be  Rome,  or  England,  or  America,  even  though 
there  be  not  a  single  nonconformist  found  for  you 
to  exercise  your  wrath  upon,  not  one  against  whom 
you  may  draw  the  sword  of  your  penalty.  But  it 
is  drawn,  and  drawn  against  the  liberty  of  con- 
science, and  every  man  whom  in  this  way  you  keep 
from  nonconformity,  you  make  him  a  deceiver  to 
his  God  ;  you  make  him  barter  his  conscience  for 
exemption  from  an  earthly  penalty  ;  you  make  him 
put  his  conscience  not  into  God's  keeping,  but 
into  the  keeping  of  your  sword  ;  you  dry  up  the 
life-blood  of  liberty  in  his  soul ;  you  make  him  in 
his  inmost  conscience  an  imprisoned  slave,  a  venal 
victim  of  your  bribery  and  terror,  and  though  he 
may  still  walk  God's  earth  as  others,  it  is  with  the 
iron  in  his  soul,  it  is  with  your  chain  about  his 


120  BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION. 

neck,  it  is  as  the  shuffling  fugitive  from  your  pen- 
alties, and  not  as  a  man  of  noble  soul,  who,  fearing 
God  religiously,  fears  nothing  else.  There  may,  in- 
deed, be  no  chain  visible,  but  you  have  wound  its  in- 
visible links  around  the  man's  spirit;  you  have  bound 
the  man  within  the  man  ;  you  have  fettered  him  ; 
and  laid  him  down  in  a  cold  dark  dungeon ;  and 
until  those  fetters  are  taken  off,  and  he  stands  erect 
and  looks  out  from  his  prison  to  God,  it  is  no 
man,  but  a  slave,  that  you  have  in  your  service  ;  it 
is  no  disciple,  but  a  Simon  Magus,  that  you  have 
in  your  church.  If  a  man  obeys  God  through  the 
fear  of  man,  when  he  would  not  do  it  otherwise,  he 
obeys  not  God,  but  man  ;  and  in  that  very  obedience 
he  becomes  a  dissembler  and  a  coward.  If  he  says, 
I  do  this,  which  I  should  not  do  otherwise,  for  fear 
of  such  or  such  a  penalty ;  or,  I  partake  of  this 
sacrament,  which  I  should  not  otherwise  touch, 
because  the  continuance  of  my  office  depends  upon 
it,  what  is  he  but  an  acknowledged  sacrilegious  hy- 
pocrite ?  And  thus  it  is  that  your  system  of  penal- 
ties for  an  established  church,  inevitably  makes 
hypocrites. 

Let  me  now  close  what  I  have  said  on  this  point 
with  a  very  beautiful  parable  by  Dr.  Franklin, 
taken  originally,  it  is  said,  from  a  Persian  poet,  and 
to  be  found  in  substance  also  in  Jeremy  Taylor. 
Its  imitation  of  the  scripture  style  is  as  exquisite 
as  its  lessons  are  admirable :  "  And  it  came  to 
pass,  after  these  things,  that  Abraham  sat  in  the 
door  of  his  tent,  about  the  going  down  of  the 
sun ;  and  behold  a  man  bent  with  age  coming 
from  the  way  of  the  wilderness,  leaning  on  a  staff. 


BUNYAN'S  EXAMINATION.  121 

And  Abraham  arose  and  met  him,  and  said  unto 
him,  Turn  in,  I  pray  thee,  and  wash  thy  feet,  and 
tarry  all  night ;  and  thou  shalt  arise  early  in  the 
morning,  and  go  thy  way.  And  the  man  said,  Nay ; 
for  I  will  abide  under  this  tree.  But  Abraham 
pressed  him  greatly :  so  he  turned,  and  they  went 
into  the  tent ;  and  Abraham  baked  unleavened 
bread,  and  they  did  eat.  And  when  Abraham  saw 
that  the  man  blessed  not  God,  he  said  unto  him, 
Wherefore  dost  thou  not  worship  the  most  high 
God,  Creator  of  Heaven  and  Earth?  And  the 
man  answered  and  said,  I  do  not  worship  thy  God, 
neither  do  I  call  on  his  name  ;  for  I  have  made 
to  myself  a  God,  which  abideth  always  in  my 
house,  and  provideth  me  with  all  things.  And 
Abraham's  zeal  was  kindled  against  the  man,  and 
he  arose,  and  fell  upon  him,  and  drove  him  forth 
with  blows  into  the  wilderness.  And  God  called 
unto  Abraham,  saying,  Abraham,  where  is  the 
stranger?  And  Abraham  answered  and  said, 
Lord,  he  would  not  worship  thee,  neither  would  he 
call  upon  thy  name ;  therefore  have  I  driven  him 
out  from  before  my  face  into  the  wilderness.  And 
God  said,  Have  I  borne  with  him  these  hundred  and 
ninety  and  eight  years,  and  nourished  him  and 
clothed  him,  notwithstanding  his  rebellion  against 
me  ;  and  couldst  not  thou,  who  art  thyself  a  sinner, 
bear  with  him  one  night !" 

Now  this  supposed  zeal  of  Abraham  was  far 
more  natural,  though  not  more  excusable,  than 
most  ebullitions  of  religious  intolerance.  But  who 
are  we,  that  dare  take  into  our  hands  the  preroga- 
tive of  God  over  the  conscience  ?  Who  are  we,  that 

16 


122  BUNYAN'S  PREACHING. 

we  should  punish  with  blows  or  penalties  of  any 
kind,  the  fellow  creatures  who  differ  from  us,  or 
because  they  differ  from  us,  in  their  religious  wor- 
ship ?  Let  us  hope  that  the  time  is  hastening, 
when  that  zeal  divorced  from  love,  which  has  pro- 
duced such  incalculable  misery  on  earth,  shall  be 
banished  from  all  human  hearts,  and  its^)lace  for 
ever  supplied  by  the  charity  of  the  gospel.  Out  of 
God's  holy  word,  I  know  of  no  brighter  example 
of  that  charity  on  record,  than  John  Bunyan. 

In  the  Grace  Abounding  to  the  Chief  of  Sinners, 
Bunyan  published  what  he  names,  A  Brief  Account 
of  the  Author's  Call  to  the  Work  of  the  Ministry. 
It  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  and  instructive 
portions  of  that  remarkable  work,  showing  the 
deep  exercises  of  his  soul  for  others  in  as  vivid  a 
light  as  the  account  of  his  conversion  sheds  upon  his 
personal  spiritual  experience.  We  venture  to  say 
that  there  was  never  in  the  world,  since  the  time 
of  the  apostle  Paul,  a  more  remarkable  instance  of 
a  wrestling  spirit  in  behalf  of  others.  And  this  it 
was,  that  by  the  blessing  of  God,  made  his  preach- 
ing efficacious ;  it  was  the  deep,  powerful,  soul- 
stirring  intensity  of  interest,  with  which  he  entered 
into  it  himself,  preparing  himself  for  it  by  fervent 
prayer,  and  following  his  own  sermons  with  a  rest- 
less importunity  of  supplication  for  the  divine  bless- 
sing.  "  In  my  preaching,"  he  tells  us  himself,  "  I 
have  really  been  in  pain,  and  have,  as  it  were,  tra- 
vailed to  bring  forth  children  to  God  ;  neither  could 
I  be  satisfied,  unless  some  fruits  did  appear  in  my 
work.  If  it  were  fruitless,  it  mattered  not  who 
commended  me ;  but  if  I  were  fruitful,  I  cared  not 


BUNYAN'S  PREACHING.  123 

who  did  condemn.  I  have  thought  of  that  word, 
Lo  !  children  are  an  heritage  of  the  Lord  ;  and  the 
fruit  of  the  womb  is  his  reward.  As  arrows  in  the 
hands  of  a  mighty  man,  so  are  children  of  the 
youth.  Happy  is  the  man  that  hath  his  quiver  full 
of  them :  they  shall  not  be  ashamed,  but  shall 
speak  with  the  enemies  in  the  gate." 

"  It  pleased  me  nothing  to  see  a  people  drink  in 
my  opinions,  if  they  seemed  ignorant  of  Jesus 
Christ  and  the  worth  of  their  own  salvation  ;  sound 
conviction  of  sin,  especially  of  unbelief,  and  an 
heart  set  on  fire  to  be  saved  by  Christ,  with  strong 
breathings  after  a  truly  sanctified  soul,  that  it  was 
that  delighted  me ;  those  were  the  souls  I  counted 
blessed." 

"  If  any  of  those  who  were  awakened  by  my  minis- 
try, did  after  that  fall  back,  (as  sometimes  too  many 
did,)  I  can  truly  say  their  loss  hath  been  more  to  me, 
than  if  my  own  children,  begotten  of  my  own  body, 
had  been  going  to  the  grave.  I  think  verily  I  may 
speak  it  without  any  offence  to  the  Lord,  nothing 
has  gone  so  near  me  as  that ;  unless  it  was  the 
fear  of  the  loss  of  the  salvation  of  my  own  soul.  I 
have  counted  as  if  I  had  goodly  buildings  and 
lordships  in  those  places  where  my  children  were 
born.  My  heart  hath  been  so  wrapped  up  in  the 
glory  of  this  excellent  work,  that  I  counted  myself 
more  blessed  and  honored  of  God  by  this,  than  if 
he  had  made  me  emperor  of  the  Christian  world,  or 
the  lord  of  all  the  glory  of  the  earth  without  it ! 
Oh  these  words  !  He  that  converteth  a  sinner  from 
the  error  of  his  ways,  doth  save  a  soul  from  death. 
The  fruit  of  the  righteous  is  a  tree  of  life  ;  and  he 


124  BUNYAN'S  PREACHING. 

that  winneth  souls  is  wise.  They  that  be  wise  shall 
shine  as  the  brightness  of  the  firmament,  and  they 
that  turn  many  to  righteousness  as  the  stars  forever 
and  ever.  For  what  is  our  hope,  our  joy,  our  crown 
of  rejoicing  1  Are  not  ye  even  in  the  presence  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  at  his  coming?  For  ye  are  our 
glory  and  joy.  These,  I  say,  with  many  others  of  a 
like  nature,  have  been  great  refreshments  to  me." 

Not  only  before  and  after  preaching  was  Bunyan 
accustomed  to  cry  mightily  to  God  for  an  effectual 
blessing,  but  also  while  he  was  in  the  exercise,  for 
every  word  that  he  spake  sprang  out  of  an  earnest 
desire  by  all  means  to  save  some.  "When  I  have 
been  preaching,  I  thank  God  my  heart  hath  often  all 
the  time  of  this  and  the  other  exercise,  with  great 
earnestness  cried  to  God  that  he  would  make  the 
word  effectual  to  the  salvation  of  the  soul ;  still  being 
grieved  lest  the  enemy  should  take  the  word  away 
from  the  conscience,  and  so  it  should  become  un- 
fruitful ;  wherefore  I  should  labor  so  to  speak  the 
word,  as  that  thereby,  if  it  were  possible,  the  sin 
and  person  guilty  might  be  particularized  by  it." 

"  Also,  when  I  have  done  the  exercise,  it  hath 
gone  to  my  heart  to  think  the  word  should  now  fall 
as  rain  on  stony  places  ;  still  wishing  from  my 
heart,  Oh  that  they  who  have  heard  me  speak  this 
day  did  but  see  as  I  do,  what  sin,  death,  hell  and 
the  curse  of  God  is  ;  and  also,  what  the  grace  and 
love  and  mercy  of  God  is,  through  Christ,  to  men  in 
such  a  case  as  they  are,  who  are  yet  estranged  from 
him.  And  indeed,  I  did  often  say  in  my  heart  be- 
fore the  Lor<$,  that  if  to  be  hanged  up  presently 
before  their  eyes  would  be  a  means  to  awaken  them, 


BUNYAN'S  PREACHING.  125 

and  confirm  them  in  the  truth,  I  should  gladly  be 
contented." 

Justification  by  faith  was  Bunyan's  great  delight 
in  preaching,  as  it  was  Luther's ;  and  he  had  gone 
through  a  depth  and  power  of  experience  in  learning 
personally  the  nature  of  this  doctrine,  remarkably 
similar  to  the  fiery  discipline  of  Luther's  own  soul 
in  coming  to  it.  Hence  it  is  not  wonderful  that 
there  should  be  a  striking  similarity  between  Bun- 
yan's style,  thoughts  and  expressions  in  preaching, 
and  those  of  the  great  Reformer.  For  example,  the 
following  passages  from  his  "  Heavenly  Footman" 
are  such  as  might  have  been  written  down  from 
Luther's  own  lips : 

"  They  that  will  go  to  heaven  must  run  for  it ;  because,  as  the 
way  is  long,  so  the  time  in  which  they  are  to  get  to  the  end  of  it  is 
very  uncertain  ;  the  time  present  is  the  only  time  ;  thou  hast  no 
more  time  allotted  thee  than  that  thou  now  enjoyest :  *  Boast  not 
thyself  of  to-morrow,  for  thou  knowest  not  what  a  day  may  bring 
forth.'  Do  not  say,  I  have  time  enough  to  get  to  heaven  seven 
years  hence ;  for  I  tell  thee,  the  bell  may  toll  for  thee  before  seven 
days  more  be  ended  ;  and  when  death  comes,  away  thou  must  go, 
whether  thou  art  provided  or  not ;  and  therefore  look  to  it ;  make 
no  delays ;  it  is  not  good  dallying  with  things  of  so  great  concern- 
ment as  the  salvation  or  damnation  of  thy  soul.  You  know  he 
that  hath  a  great  way  to  go  in  a  little  time,  and  less  by  half  than 
he  thinks  of,  he  had  need  to  run  for  it. 

"  They  that  will  have  heaven  must  run  for  it;  because  the  devil, 
the  law,  sin,  death,  and  hell,  follow  them.  There  is  never  a  poor 
soul  that  is  going  to  heaven,  but  the  devil,  the  law,  sin,  death,  and 
hell,  make  after  that  soul.  '  The  devil  your  adversary,  as  a 
roaring  lion,  goeth  about  seeking  whom  he  may  devour.'  And  I 
will  assure  you,  the  devil  is  nimble,  he  can  run  apace,  he  is  light 
of  foot,  he  hath  overtaken  many,  he  hath  turned  up  their  heels, 
and  hath  given  them  an  everlasting  fall.  Also  the  law,  that  can 
shoot  a  great  way,  have  a  care  thou  keep  out  of  the  reach  of  those 


126  BUNYAN'S  PREACHING. 

great  guns,  the  ten  commandments.  Hell  also  hath  a  wide  mouth ; 
it  can  stretch  itself  farther  than  you  are  aware  of.  And  as  the 
angel  said  to  Lot,  '  Take  heed,  look  not  behind  thee,  neither  tarry 
thou  in  all  the  plain,  (that  is,  any  where  between  this  and  heaven,) 
lest  thou  be  consumed; 'so  say  I  to  thee,  Take  heed,  tarry«not,  lest 
either  the  devil,  hell,  death,  or  the  fearful  curses  of  the  law  of 
God,  do  overtake  thee,  and  throw  thee  down  in  the  midst  of  thy 
sins,  so  as  never  to  rise  and  recover  again.  If  this  were  well  con- 
sidered, then  thou,  as  well  as  I,  wouldst  say,  They  that  will  have 
heaven  must  run  for  it. 

"  They  that  will  go  to  heaven  must  run  for  it ;  because,  per- 
chance, the  gates  of  heaven  may  shut  shortly.  Sometimes  sinners 
have  not  heaven's  gates  open  to  them  so  long  as  they  suppose ; 
and  if  they  be  once  shut  against  a  man,  they  are  so  heavy,  that 
all  the  men  in  the  world,  nor  all  the  angels  in  heaven,  are  not 
able  to  open  them.  * 1  shut,  and  no  man  can  open,'  saith  Christ. 
And  how  if  thou  shouldst  come  but  one  quarter  of  an  hour  too  late  ? 
I  tell  thee,  it  will  cost  thee  an  eternity  to  bewail  thy  misery  in. 
Francis  Spira  can  tell  thee  what  it  is  to  stay  till  the  gate  of  mercy 
be  quite  shut ;  or  to  run  so  lazily,  that  they  be  shut  before  thou 
get  within  them.  What,  to  be  shut  out !  what,  out  of  heaven  ! 
Sinner,  rather  than  lose  it,  run  for  it ;  yea,  and  '  so  run  that  thou 
mayest  obtain.'  ' 

Such  preaching  as  this,  such  fire  and  life,  coming 
from  such  a  spirit  as  was  in  Bunyan's  heart,  could 
not  but  be  effectual ;  the  Spirit  of  God  attended  it ; 
crowds  of  people  would  flock  together  to  hear  it,  and 
many  who  came  to  scoff  went  away  with  the  fire  of 
the  preacher  in  their  consciences.  Bunyan  enjoyed 
himself  more  in  preaching  on  the  subject  of  faith 
than  on  any  other,  though  he  proclaimed  the 
"  terrors  of  the  Lord"  with  unequalled  power  and 
pungency.  "  For  I  have  been  in  my  preaching," 
says  he,  "  especially  when  I  have  been  engaged  in 
the  doctrine  of  life  by  Christ  without  works,  as  if 
an  angel  of  God  had  stood  at  my  back  to  encourage 


BUNYAN'S  PREACHING.  127 

me.  Oh  !  it  hath  been  with  such  power  and  hea- 
venly evidence  upon  my  own  soul,  while  I  have  been 
laboring  to  unfold  it,  to  demonstrate  it,  and  to 
fasten  it  upon  the  consciences  of  others,  that  I 
could  not  be  contented  with  saying,  I  believe  and 
am  sure  ;  methought  I  was  more  than  sure,  if  it  be 
lawful  to  express  myself  so,  that  those  things 
which  there  I  asserted  were  true." 

Bunyan  from  time  to  time,  even  in  his  preaching, 
experienced  the  assaults  of  his  old  adversary. 
"  Sometimes,"  he  says,  "I  have  been  violently  as- 
saulted with  thoughts  of  blasphemy,  and  strongly 
tempted  to  speak  the  words  with  my  mouth  be- 
fore the  congregation."  He  was  also  tempted  to 
"  pride  and  liftings  up  of  heart,"  but  it  was  his 
every  day  portion  to  be  so  let  into  the  evil  of  his 
own  heart,  and  still  made  to  see  such  a  multitude  of 
corruptions  and  infirmities  therein,  that  it  "  caused 
hanging  down  of  the  head  under  all  his  gifts  and 
attainments."  Moreover  Bunyan  had  experience 
on  this  point  from  the  word  of  God,  which  greatly 
chastened  and  humbled  his  spirit.  "  I  have  had 
also,"  says  he,  "  together  with  this,  some  notable 
place  or  other  of  the  word  presented  before  me, 
which  word  hath  contained  in  it  some  sharp  and 
piercing  sentence  concerning  the  perishing  of  the 
soul,  notwithstanding  gifts  and  parts  ;  as,  for  in- 
stance, that  hath  been  of  great  use  to  me,  Though  1 
speak  with  the  tongues  of  men  and  angels,  and 
have  not  charity,  lam  become  as  a  sounding  brass 
and  a  tinkling  cymbal. 

"A  tinkling  cymbal  is  an  instrument  of  music  with 
which  a  skilful  player  can  make  such  melodious 


128  BUNYAN'S  PREACHING. 

and  heart-inflaming  music,  that  all  who  hear  him 
play  can  scarcely  hold  from  dancing ;  and  yet  behold 
the  cymbal  hath  not  life,  neither  comes  the  music 
from  it,  but  because  of  the  art  of  him  that  plays 
therewith  ;  so  then  the  instrument  at  last  may 
come  to  naught  and  perish,  though  in  times  past 
such  music  hath  been  made  upon  it. 

"  Just  thus  I  saw  it  was,  and  will  be,  with  them 
that  have  gifts,  but  want  saving  grace  ;  they  are  in 
the  hand  of  Christ  as  the  cymbal  in  the  hand  of 
David  ;  and  as  David  could  with  the  cymbal  make 
that  mirth  in  the  service  of  God  as  to  elevate  the 
hearts  of  the  worshippers,  so  Christ  can  use  these 
gifted  men,  as  with  them  to  affect  the  souls  of  his 
people  in  the  church  ;  yet  when  he  hath  done  all, 
hang  them  by,  as  lifeless,  though  sounding  cymbals. 

"  This  consideration,  therefore,  together  with 
some  others,  were,  for  the  most  part,  as  a  maul  on 
the  head  of  pride,  and  desire  of  vain-glory.  What, 
thought  I,  shall  I  be  proud  because  I  am  a  sound- 
ing brass  I  Is  it  so  much  to  be  a  fiddle  ?  Hath 
not  the  least  creature  that  hath  life  more  of  God 
in  it  than  these  ?  Besides,  I  knew  it  was  love 
should  never  die,  but  these  must  cease  and  vanish ; 
so  I  concluded  a  little  grace,  a  little  love,  a  little  of 
the  true  fear  of  God  is  better  than  all  the  gifts ;  yea, 
and  I  am  fully  convinced  of  it  that  it  is  possible  for 
souls  that  can  scarce  give  a  man  an  answer,  but  with 
great  confusion  as  to  method  ;  I  say  it  is  possible 
for  them  to  have  a  thousand  times  more  grace,  and 
to  be  more  in  the  love  and  favor  of  the  Lord,  than 
some  who,  by  the  virtue  of  the  gift  of  knowledge, 
can  deliver  themselves  like  angels." 


BUNYAN    IN    PRISON. 


Illustrations  of  the  Times  of  Bunyan.— Results  of  the  spirit  of  persecution.— The  Puri- 
tans driven  to  America. — Baxter  in  the  Parliamentary  Army. — The  multiplicity  of 
Sects,  and  Milton's  opinion  thereon. — Bedford  Jail,  and  Bunyan  in  it,  with  his  little 
child. — The  Plague  in  London,  and  the  persecuting  King  and  Court  in  Oxford. — 
Bunyan's  conference  with  the  Justice's  Clerk. — Interview  of  Bunyan 's  wife  with 
the  Judges.— Bunyan's  prison  employments. — Suggestion  and  pursuit  of  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress. 

IN  a  former  lecture,  I  have  briefly  sketched  the 
principal  movements  of  intolerance  and  persecution 
during  the  reign  of  those  English  monarchs  who 
bore  the  name  of  Charles.  In  order  the  better  to 
illustrate  that  persecuting  spirit,  which  from  the 
reign  of  James,  passed  into  this,  and  the  glorious 
issues  that  grew  out  of  it,  through  that  Omnipotent 
Prerogative,  whereby  the  Divine  Being  causes  the 
wrath  of  man  to  praise  him,  we  will  call  up  several 
great  separate  scenes  from  the  past,  with  the  actors 
in  them  ;  to  note  which  will  be  better  for  our  pur- 
pose, than  would  be  a  whole  volume  of  historical 
dissertations.  The  first  scene  is  in  the  great  era 
of  1620,  just  eight  years  before  the  birth  of  Bun- 
yan. It  is  a  lowering  winter's  day ;  on  a  coast 
rock-bound  and  perilous,  sheeted  with  ice  and  snow, 
hovers  a  small  vessel,  worn  and  weary,  like  a  bird 
17 


130  BUNYAN    IN    PRISON. 

with  wet  plumage,  driven  in  a  storm  from  its  nest, 
and  timidly  seeking  shelter.  It  is  the  Mayflower, 
thrown  on  the  bosom  of  Winter.  The  very  sea  is 
freezing  ;  the  earth  is  as  still  as  the  grave,  covered 
with  snow,  and  as  hard  with  frost,  as  iron  ;  there  is 
no  sign  of  a  human  habitation  ;  the  deep  forests 
have  lost  their  foliage,  and  rise  over  the  land  like 
a  shadowy  congregation  of  skeletons.  Yet  there 
is  a  band  of  human  beings  on  board  that  weather- 
beaten  vessel,  and  they  have  voluntarily  come  to  this 
savage  coast  to  spend  the  rest  of  their  lives,  and  to 
die  there.  Eight  thousand  miles  they  have  struggled 
across  the  ocean,  from  a  land  of  plenty  and  com 
fort,  from  their  own  beloved  country,  from  their 
homes,  firesides,  friends,  to  gather  around  an 
altar  to  God  in  the  winter,  in  the  wilderness! 
What  does  it  all  mean  ?  It  marks  to  a  noble  mind 
the  invaluable  blessedness  of  FREEDOM  TO  WORSHIP 
GOD  !  It  means,  that  religious  oppression  is  worse 
to 'bear,  more  hard,  more  intolerable  to  a  generous 
mind,  more  insufferable  to  an  upright  conscience, 
than  the  war  of  the  elements,  than  peril  and  naked- 
ness, than  cold  and  hunger,  than  dens  and  caves  of 
the  earth,  than  disease  and  the  loss  of  friends,  and 
the  tomahawks  of  savage  enemies  !  These  men 
have  fled  from  religious  oppression  ;  the  hand  of 
power  has  attempted  to  grasp  and  bind  the  con- 
science ;  and  conscience,  and  an  undying  religious 
faith,  have  borne  these  men  into  the  wilderness 
to  worship  God  as  freely  as  the  air  that  breathes 
God's  praises. 

So  noble,  so  grand,  so  holy,  was  the  national 
birth  of  the  best  part  of  these  United  States  of 


BUNYAN    IN    PRISON.  131 

America  !  Well  may  we  glory  in  the  name  of  PU- 
RITAN. It  is  a  synonyme  for  all  that  is  holy  in 
piety,  unbending  in  moral  rectitude,  patient  in  self- 
denial,  illustrious  in  patriotism,  precious  in  liberty 
and  truth.  But  the  virtues  of  our  Puritan  ances- 
tors, in  their  development,  at  least,  grew  out  of 
oppression ;  they  were  good  out  of  evil,  the  wrath 
of  man  turned  into  the  praise  of  God.  It  was  the 
touch  of  the  iron  sceptre  of  the  Stuarts,  laid  upon 
that  sacred  thing  a  pure,  enlightened,  religious  con- 
science, and  upon  that  sacred  possession,  a  chosen, 
conscientious  religious  faith  and  worship,  that 
brought  to  pass  all  this  glory  ;  it  was  the  tyranny 
of  an  Established  Church,  the  daring  usurpation 
by  the  King  of  England  of  the  prerogative  of 
Christ  as  the  head  of  his  people,  that  planted  on 
this  continent  the  germ  both  of  civil  and  religious 
liberty,  the  elements  of  the  purest  religious  faith, 
and  of  the  freest  political  institutions  in  the  world  ! 
This  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  instances  on 
record,  of  the  overruling  sovereignty  of  God  in  its 
blessed  purposes,  by  the  instrumentality  of  his  own 
enemies.  The  persecution,  which  in  England  threw 
John  Bunyan  into  prison  to  write  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress,  drove  those  holy  men  and  women  out  of 
England  into  the  wilderness,  to  form  an  asylum  of 
liberty  and  religion  for  the  whole  world.  It  was 
one  of  King  James'  sayings,  no  Bishop,  no  King; 
arid  here  in  this  land,  under  the  oppression  of  James, 
a  church  without  a  bishop  and  a  government  with- 
out a  king,  secured  and  established  that  charter  of 
civil  and  religious  freedom,  which  king  and  prelate 
had  alike  violated  and  destroyed. 


132  BUNYAN    IN    PRISON. 

The  colony  of  the  Puritans  was  driven  out  of 
England,  as  the  oppressed  Hebrews  were  driven 
out  of  Egypt ;  and  to  this  country  they  came,  under 
just  as  sacred  and  holy  an  invisible  guidance,  as  the 
Israelites  of  old  to  the  land  of  Canaan.  In  the 
simple,  striking  language  of  the  Bible,  "  It  is  a 
night  to  be  much  observed  unto  the  Lord  for  bring- 
ing them  out  from  the  land  of  Egypt ;  this  is  that 
night  of  the  Lord  to  be  observed  of  all  the  children 
of  Israel,  in  their  generations."  And  so  was  the 
night  of  the  departure  of  our  pilgrim  ancestors  a 
night  of  the  Lord ;  it  was  to  them  a  night  of  sor- 
row, both  when  they  came,  and  when  they  landed  ; 
but  it  was  that  night  of  the  Lord  ;  and  it  brought  a 
day  of  glory,  such  as  the  world  had  not  seen  for 
ages,  and  of  which,  God  grant  the  light  may  never 
go  out. 

Ay !  call  it  holy  ground 

The  spot  where  first  they  trod  ! 
They  left  unstained  what  there  they  found, 

FREEDOM  TO  WORSHIP  GOD! 

We  leave  now  this  colony,  growing,  under  God's 
protecting  care,  in  numbers  and  in  graces,  and  pass 
to  another  scene,  about  twenty  years  afterwards, 
when  the  conflict  for  liberty  on  the  one  side  and 
tyranny  on  the  other,  was  raging  between  King 
Charles  I.  and  the  Parliament  with  Oliver  Crom- 
well. 

The  scene  is  in  a  church,  and  yet  it  looks  like  a 
camp,  for  it  is  crowded  with  soldiers,  as  well  as  with 
a  village  congregation.  It  is  not  the  Lord's  day,  but 
a  public  talking  day  for  sectarian  controversy ;  and 
you  might  think  the  confusion  of  Babel  had  been 


BUNYAN    IN     PRISON.  133 

there  renewed  from  the  strife  of  tongues  and 
opinions  to  which  you  listen.  There  are  fierce 
Antinomians,  and  Free-willers,  and  Episcopalians, 
and  Independents,  and  Anabaptists,  and  Presby- 
terians and  Nonconformists  ;  all  animated  with  zeal 
and  ready  to  contend  for  their  peculiar  opinions. 
The  troopers  of  one  regiment,  and  the  soldiers  of 
another,  throw  forth  opinions  and  arguments  with 
almost  as  much  fury  as  they  did  musket  balls  in  war. 
But  in  the  midst  of  all  this  confusion,  there  stands 
in  the  reading  pew  under  the  pulpit,  a  plain  man 
in  a  black  dress,  evidently  a  clergyman,  with  the 
Bible  in  his  hand ;  a  thin,  pallid,  but  heavenly 
countenance,  though  indicating  as  great  a  sharp- 
ness in  controversy  as  any  of  the  soldiers  in  war  ; 
and  he  stands,  and  disputes,  and  discusses  with 
the  soldiers,  without  once  quitting  his  post  or  relin- 
quishing the  contest,  from  morning  till  night.  This 
is  Richard  Baxter,  the  holy,  venerated  author  of  the 
Saints'  Rest.  He  served  for  a  season  as  chaplain 
in  the  parliamentary  army,  and  in  justice  to  that 
army  as  well  as  to  himself,  I  must  describe  in  his 
own  words  something  more  of  his  position.  "  I 
was  almost  always,"  says  he,  "  when  opportunity 
offered,  disputing  with  one  or  the  other  ;  some- 
times upon  civil  government,  and  sometimes  upon 
church  order  and  government ;  sometimes  upon 
infant  baptism,  often  against  Antinomianism  and 
the  contrary  extreme.  But  their  most  frequent 
and  vehement  disputes  were  for  liberty  of  con- 
science, as  they  called  it ;  that  is,  that  the  civil 
government  hath  nothing  to  do  to  determine  any 

thing  in  matters  of  religion  by  constraint  or  re- 

« 

- 


134  BUNYAN    IN    PRISON. 

straint ;  but  that  every  man  might  not  only  hold, 
but  preach  and  do,  in  matters  of  religion,  what 
he  pleased :  that  the  civil  magistrate  hath  nothing 
to  do  but  with  civil  things,  to  keep  the  peace,  pro- 
tect the  church's  liberties,  &c." 

This  is  certainly  a  most  striking  testimony  as 
to  the  character  of  Oliver  Cromwell's  army.  Their 
very  relaxations  and  amusements  were  chosen,  not 
in  the  tap-room  or  the  tavern,  not  in  revelling 
and  drunkenness,  but  in  serious,  hard  contested 
arguments  with  one  another,  and  with  the  keenest 
disputant  of  the  times,  on  some  of  the  most  im- 
portant questions  that  can  occupy  the  human  mind. 
They  were  deeply  interested,  as  no  army  ever  was 
before,  on  the  subject  of  religion  ;  nor  was  it  any 
wonder,  that  with  such  an  army,  Oliver  Cromwell 
was  invincible.  Religious  liberty  was  new  to 
them  ;  it  was  the  grand  heresy  of  the  army; 
Richard  Baxter  pays  the  highest  compliment  to 
them,  in  saying  that  they  contended  more  vehe- 
mently for  this  than  for  any  thing  else.  It  was 
this  precious  possession  and  birthright  of  the 
Christian,  which  a  persecuting  religious  hierarchy, 
in  alliance  with  the  despotism  of  the  Stuarts, 
would  have  utterly  destroyed. 

A  word  seems  necessary  in  regard  to  the  mul- 
titude of  sects  existing  in  those  days,  and  the 
causes  and  the  nature  of  them.  In  the  nature  of 
the  human  mind  there  never  can  be  a  dead  uniform- 
ity of  opinion  on  any  subjects  ;  there  cannot  be 
on  political  subjects,  and  on  religious  matters,  it 
was  never  intended  by  the  great  Head  of  the 
church  that  there  should  be.  We  may  liken 


BUNYAN  IN   PRISON.  135 

religious  opinion  in  the  church  of  Christ  to  the 
growth  of  a  tree  ;  there  are  ten  thousand  varying 
twigs  and  branches,  and  of  the  buds  and  blos- 
soms you  can  find  no  two  exactly  alike,  and  in  a 
million  leaves  there  are  a  million  varieties  of 
outline,  hue,  veins,  and  fibres ;  and  the  fruit 
itself  is  different  in  shape,  color,  fragrance  and 
taste.  And  for  all  this,  the  tree  is  incomparably 
more  beautiful  and  wholesome.  Now  suppose, 
while  that  tree  is  growing,  you  should,  for  one 
season  only,  cover  it  over  with  some  great  crush- 
ing weight ;  it  would  still  grow ;  the  life  of  na- 
ture is  too  vigorous,  too  indestructible,  except  you 
uproot  it,  to  be  kept  from  shooting  ;  but  if  you  re- 
move that  weight  in  the  Autumn,  what  will  you 
find  as  the  result  of  compressed  vital  energy? 
Distortions,  excrescences,  monstrosities  ;  knotted 
and  contorted  branches,  uptwisted  and  inveterately 
convolved ;  leaves  nested  with  worms,  and  over- 
curled,  and  grown  in  spasms  and  bunches  ;  and 
fruit,  if  at  all,  hard  and  deformed,  green,  odious 
and  bitter.  Precisely  such  is  the  effect  of  vio- 
lently crushing  the  growth  of  opinion  ;  sects,  that 
would  have  spead  into  symmetrical  varieties  in 
twigs  and  foliage,  with  fair  mellow  fruit  to  suit 
all  palates,  are  vermiculated,  and  pressed  into 
inveterate  deformities  and  perhaps  poisonous  mon- 
strosities. 

"They  corrupt  the  discipline  of  Christ,"  says 
Baxter,  "  by  mixing  it  with  secular  force.  They 
reproach  the  keys,  or  ministerial  power,  as  if  it 
were  a  leaden  sword,  and  not  worth  a  straw,  un- 
less the  magistrates7  sword  enforce  it.  What 


136  BUNYAN    IN    PRISON. 

then  did  the  primitive  church  for  three  hundred 
years  ?  Worst  of  all,  they  corrupt  the  church, 
by  forcing  in  the  rabble  of  the  unfit  and  unwill- 
ing ;  arid  thereby  tempt  many  godly  Christians  to 
schisms  and  dangerous  separations.  Till  magis- 
trates keep  the  sword  themselves,  and  learn  to 
deny  it  to  every  angry  clergyman  who  would  do 
his  own  work  with  it,  and  leave  them  to  their  own 
weapons, —  the  word  and  spiritual  keys, —  the 
church  will  never  have  unity  and  peace.  I  dis- 
liked also,"  Baxter  adds,  "  some  of  the  Presby- 
terians, that  were  not  tender  enough  to  dissenting 
brethren;  but  too  much  against  liberty,  as  others 
were  too  much  for  it ;  and  thought  by  votes  and 
numbers  to  do  that  which  love  and  reason  should 
have  done."  Ah,  how  much  truth  in  this  sad 
aphorism,  as  the  habit  of  mankind ;  votes  and 
numbers,  instead  of  love  and  reason.  "  The  poor 
church  of  Christ,"  Baxter  curiously  remarks,  "  the 
sober,  sound,  religious  part,  are  like  Christ,  that 
was  crucified  between  two  thieves.  The  profane 
and  formal  persecutors  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
fanatic  dividing  sectaries  on  the  other,  have  in 
all  ages  been  grinding  the  spiritual  seed,  as  the 
corn  is  ground  between  the  millstones." 

And  now,  I  must  add  to  this  the  sensible  re- 
marks of  the  judicious  and  impartial  biographer 
of  Baxter,  as  to  the  period  on  which  we  have 
been  dwelling.  "  It  is  worthy  of  observation,"  says 
Mr.  Orme,  "  that  all  attempts  to  produce  uniformity 
have  either  been  defeated  or  have  occasioned  fresh 
divisions.  Under  the  appearance  of  outward  unity, 
the  greatest  diversity  of  opinion  generally  prevails. 


BUNYAN   IN   PRISON.  137 

And  genuine  religion  flourishes  most  amidst  what 
is  commonly  denounced  as  the  contentions  of  rival 
sects.  The  soil  whose  rankness  sends  forth  an 
abundant  crop  of  weeds,  will  produce,  if  cultivated, 
a  still  more  luxuriant  harvest  of  corn.  If  the  times 
of  Baxter  were  fruitful  of  sects,  and  some  of  them 
wild  and  monstrous,  they  were  still  more  fruitful 
in  the  number  of  genuine,  holy  and  devoted  Chris- 
tians. It  was  not  an  age  of  fanaticism  only,  but 
of  pure  and  undefiled  religion." 

I  am  reminded  also  of  that  noble  passage  in  Mil- 
ton's Areopagitica :  "  For  when  God  shakes  a 
kingdom  with  strong  and  healthful  commotions  to 
a  general  reforming,  it  is  not  untrue  that  many  sec- 
taries and  false  teachers  are  then  busiest  in  sedu- 
cing ;  but  yet  more  true  it  is,  that  God  then  raises 
to  his  own  work  men  of  rare  abilities,  and  more 
than  common  industry,  not  only  to  look  back  and 
revise  what  hath  been  taught  heretofore,  but  to 
gain  further,  and  go  on  some  new  enlightened  steps 
in  the  discovery  of  truth.  And  do  we  not  see  that 
while  we  still  affect  by  all  means  a  rigid  external 
formality,  we  may  as  soon  fall  again  into  a  gross 
conforming  stupidity,  a  stark  and  dead  congealment 
of  wood,  and  hay,  and  stubble,  forced  and  frozen 
together,  which  is  more  to  the  sudden  degeneracy 
of  a  church  than  many  subdichotamies  '(subdivi- 
sions) of  petty  schisms.  Not  that  I  can  think  well 
of  every  light  separation  ;  or  that  all  in  a  church 
is  to  be  expected  gold  and  silver  and  precious 
stones;  it  is  not  possible  for  men  to  sever  the 
wheat  from  the  tares,  the  good  fish  from  the  other 
fry  ;  that  must  be  the  angels'  ministry  at  the  end 
18 


138  BUNYAN    IN    PRISON. 

of  mortal  things.  Yet,  if  all  cannot  be  of  one 
mind,  as  who  looks  they  should  be.?  this,  doubtless, 
is  more  wholesome,  more  prudent,  and  more  Chris- 
tian, that  many  be  tolerated,  rather  than  all  com- 
pelled." 

The  period  on  which  we  are  dwelling  might 
almost  be  termed  a  religious  and  political  whirl- 
wind; a  hurricane  of  opinions,  in  which  the  ele- 
ment? of  heaven  and  earth  met  and  contended. 
But  tyranny  and  unnatural  restraint  acting  upon 
elements  that  in  our  human  and  religious  nature 
must  always  exist,  but  that,  if  left  to  a  quiet  growth 
and  development,  will,  under  God's  providence  and 
grace,  make  a  wholesome,  transparent,  circum- 
fluent atmosphere  for  society ;  produced  infernal 
mixtures,  electric  explosions,  black  thunder-clouds, 
charged  at  once  with  the  fires  of  angry  passion,  and 
the  tremendous  energy  of  conscience,  piety  and 
fanaticism  together.  Look  over  this,  our  own  be- 
loved land  of  liberty  and  religion ;  there  are  as 
many  sects  in  it,  as  there  ever  were  on  the  borders, 
or  in  the  heart,  of  the  period  of  the  Commonwealth 
of  England  ;  and  if  you  were  to  put  upon  them 
here  those  violent  restraints,  by  which  they  had 
then  and  there  been  made  to  chafe,  and  smoulder, 
and  irritate  in  confinement,  and  from  which  they 
broke  loose  with  such  astounding  developments, 
such  flames,  such  indomitable  life,  such  exulting 
and  contending  fury,  you  would  change  the  calm 
and  blessed  aspect  of  our  state  into  a  hurricane  of 
anarchy  and  revolution;  out  of  this  all  surround- 
ing atmosphere  of  peace  and  freedom,  in  which 
every  man  sees  clearly,  and  breathes  securely,  you 


BUNYAN    IN    PRISON.  139 

would  evoke  storms  and  lightning  ;  thunder-clouds 
would  appear  charged  against  each  other,  and 
houses  would  be  ^een  unroofed,  and  trees  uprooted 
and  flying  through  the  darkened  air  in  tornadoes. 
Such  is  the  inevitable  consequence  of  laying  the 
hand  of  civil  or  religious  tyranny  upon  the  liberty 
of  opinion.  It  is  like  laying  a  mountain  without  a 
crater  upon  a  raging  volcano.  The  continent 
shakes  with  earthquakes ;  the  thunder  bellows 
from  its  subterranean  confinement ;  the  lava  breaks 
out  in  plains,  and  pours  and  burns  over  smiling 
villages;  and  just  so,  earth  will  be  a  symbol  of  the 
chaos  of  hell,  if  you  lay  your  mountain  of  civil  or 
religious  tyranny  on  the  human  conscience.  Leave 
it  free,  and  it  is  like  the  atmosphere  with  God  to 
govern  its  elements;  confine  it,  and  it  is  like  a 
pent  volcano,  that  will  shake  and  devastate  the 
world. 

Fanaticism  grows  by  opposition,  in  confinement, 
in  constrained  silence  and  darkness ;  it  may  be 
thus  produced,  where  there  was  nothing  of  it  be- 
fore. This  is  but  the  Poet's  principle,  that 

Thoughts  shut  up  want  air, 


And  spoil,  like  bales  unopened  to  the  sun. 

It  is  especially  so  with  religious  opinion  that  is 
suffering  tyrannical  restraint.  It  becomes  a  smoul- 
dering fire,  that  burns  inwardly  ;  and  as  in  a  cot- 
ton-ship at  sea,  or  a  barn  crammed  with  wet  hay, 
the  combustion  having  once  commenced,  if  you 
open  the  hatches  or  cut  the  bundles  to  put  it  out, 
it  is  ten  to  one  that  you  are  too  late,  and  it  all 
bursts  into  a  light  flame  together,  so  that  houses 


140  BUNYAN  IN    PRISON. 

and  ships,  and  human  lives  are  consumed  in  the 
conflagration  ;  just  so  with  restrained,  smouldering 
opinions  in  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  state.  But 
if  a  bundle  of  wet  hay  were  spread  open  with  the 
rake,  or  tossed  on  the  fork  in  the  sun  and  air,  it 
would  speedily  become  dry  and  safe  for  your  barns 
and  cattle.  Just  so  with  swarming  opinions,  that 
by  restraint  would  turn  to  fanaticism  in  the  popular 
mind  ;  give  them  the  air ;  turn  them,  rake  them, 
toss  them,  over  and  over  again,  in  the  bright  sun, 
to  the  sound  of  free  and  merry  voices ;  let  all  the 
world,  if  they  wish,  see  what  they  are ;  let  all  the 
world,  if  they  wish,  help  to  turn  and  spread  them ; 
the  mischief,  if  there  were  any,  dies  in  such  a  pro- 
cess. Truth,  liberty,  justice,  never  fears  the  free- 
dom of  opinion,  tossed  out  so  in  the  open  air,  and 
spread  beneath  the  sun-light ;  truth  only  asks  the 
light  and  air,  and  the  whole  world  to  come  and  see 
every  thing ;  but  error,  despotism,  tyranny,  fears 
such  a  tossing  and  spreading  of  the  truth,  and 
would  rather  shut  it  up  in  bundles  and  crowd  it 
into  a  Bastile,  or  into  the  hold  of  a  slave-ship. 
Such  things  have  been,  and  no  doubt  such  things 
will  be  again.  And  we  hope  in  God  that  in  this 
country,  by  his  word,  and  by  his  grace,  his  people 
will  be  prepared  for  the  conflict.  Nobly  says  Mil- 
ton, "  Though  all  the  winds  of  doctrine  were  let 
loose  to  play  upon  the  earth,  so  Truth  be  in  the 
field,  we  do  injuriously  by  licensing  and  prohibit- 
ing, to  misdoubt  her  strength.  Let  her  and  False- 
hood grapple;  who  ever  knew  truth  put  to  the 
worse  in  a  free  and  open  encounter  V '  No  man, 
ever  ;  and  where  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is,  there  is 
LIBERTY. 


BUNYAN    IN    PRISON.  141 

Pass  we  now  to  another  scene,  about  twenty 
years  later,  during  which  time,  save  in  the  brief  and 
glorious  protectorate  of  Cromwell,  there  had  been 
an  almost  uninterrupted  succession  of  arbitrary,  per- 
secuting measures  in  the  Church  and  State  of  Eng- 
land. We  enter  the  prison  of  John  Bunyan.  It 
is,  you  are  aware,  the  common  jail  of  Bedford. 
It  is  said  to  have  been  the  damp  and  dreadful  con- 
dition of  this  prison,  which  first  set  Howard's  phi- 
lanthropic spirit  in  exercise,  for  the  improvement 
of  the  prisons  throughout  Europe.  Bunyan's  pri- 
son stood  upon  the  Bedford  bridge.  It  was  a 
bridge  of  sighs  to  many,  though,  by  God's  grace, 
not  to  him ;  its  walls  were  probably  almost  as 
damp  as  the  dungeons  in  Venice,  but  it  was  not 
sea  water  that  washed  its  foundations,  and  trickled 
its  rusty  iron  grates  with  moisture.  There  was 
no  court-yard,  no  space  for  out-of-door  work,  or 
exercise  in  the  open  air ;  there  were  stone  walls 
and  iron  bars,  a  bridge  and  a  river.  The  window 
in  his  cell  was  grated,  so  that  he  could  not  look  far 
or  freely  out  of  it ;  but  he  could  see  the  sunlight, 
the  water,  the  fields  and  the  clouds.  The 
glimpses  of  sweet  nature  in  this  world  were  not  so 
clear  to  him  here,  as  were  the  perspective  visions 
of  the  Holy  City  coming  in  upon  his  soul.  His 
cell  was  small  and  comfortless,  as  was  the  whole 
jail ;  and  when  he  would  step  farther  than  the 
few  paces  back  and  forth  between  the  walls  of  that 
cell,  he  must  go  into  the  common  room  of  the  pri- 
son. In  those  times  of  persecution,  it  was  crowd- 
ed ;  there  were  at  one  period  more  than  sixty  dis- 
senters incarcerated  along  with  Bunyan,  some  for 


142  BUNYAN    IN    PRISON. 

hearing  the  Gospel,  some  for  preaching  it.  He 
had,  it  is  said,  the  experience  of  some  cruel  and 
oppressive  jailors,  though  others  were  very  kind 
to  him.  Twelve  years  of  imprisonment  are  long 
to  bear, 

Long  years,  it  tries  the  thrilling  frame  to  bear, 

and  for  six  or  seven  of  those  it  has  been  said  that 
there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  he  ever  was  per- 
mitted to  set  his  foot  outside  the  rocky  threshold. 
Perhaps  he  had  died,  says  the  continuation  of  his 
own  life,  which  is  supposed  to  have  been  written 
by  a  brother  Baptist  minister  intimately  acquainted 
with  him — perhaps  he  had  died,  by  the  noisome- 
ness  and  ill  usage  of  the  place,  had  not  his  enlarge- 
ment been  procured  from  his  hard  and  unreasona- 
ble sufferings.  Unable  to  pursue  the  honest  trade 
at  which  he  had  always  hitherto  wrought  for  the 
support  of  his  family,  he  now  learned,  assisted, 
doubtless,  by  them,  to  make  tagged  thread  laces, 
by  the  sale  of  which  they  might  procure  what  must 
have  been,  at  best,  a  scanty  subsistence.  A  be- 
loved wife  and  four  children  were  dependent  upon 
him,  and  were  permitted  at  times  to  visit  him  ;  and 
that  dear  blind  child,  in  regard  to  whom  he  has,  in 
so  artless  and  affecting  a  manner,  related  the  trial 
of  his  feelings,  was  permitted  to  abide  with  him 
through  the  day,  a  solace  to  his  heart,  a  companion 
in  his  work,  and  one  to  whom  he  could  talk  as 
artlessly  as  to  his  own  soul ;  their  conversation 
must  have  been  often  as  the  prattle  of  two  children, 
for  Bunyan  had  in  him  the  freshness  and  simplicity 
of  childhood,  even  in  riper  years  ;  a  mark  of  genius, 


BUNYAN    IN    PRISON.  143 

which  a  great  and  profound  writer  has  pointed  out 
as  one  of  its  mast  precious  and  undoubted  cha- 
racteristics. 

Now  let  us  enter  his  little  cell.  He  is  sitting 
at  his  table,  to  finish  by  sunlight  the  day's  work, 
for  the  livelihood  of  his  dear  family,  which  they  have 
prepared  for  him.  On  a  little  stool  his  poor  blind 
child  sits  by  him,  and  with  that  expression  of  cheer- 
ful resignation,  with  which  God  seals  the  counte- 
nance when  he  takes  away  the  sight,  the  daughter 
turns  her  face  up  to  her  father,  as  if  she  could  see 
the  affectionate  expression  with  which  he  looks 
upon  her,  and  prattles  to  her.  On  the  table  and 
in  the  grated  window  there  are  three  books,  the 
Bible,  the  Concordance,  and  Bunyan's  precious 
old  copy  of  the  Book  of  Martyrs.  And  now  the 
day  is  waning,  and  his  dear  blind  child  must  go 
home  with  the  laces  he  has  finished,  to  her  mother. 
And  now  Bunyan  opens  his  Bible,  and  reads  aloud 
a  portion  of  scripture  to  his  little  one,  and  then 
encircling  her  in  his  arms,  and  clasping  her  small 
hands  in  his,  he  kneels  down  on  the  cold  stone 
floor,  and  pours  out  his  soul  in  prayer  to  God  for 
the  salvation  of  those  so  inexpressibly  dear  to  him, 
and  for  whom  he  has  been  all  day  working.  So 
daily  he  prays  for  them  and  for  her,  and  daily  he 
prays  with  her,  and  teaches  his  blind  child  to 
pray.  This  done,  with  a  parting  kiss  he  dis- 
misses her  to  her  mother,  by  the  rough  hands  of 
the  jailor. 

And  now  it  is  evening.  A  rude  lamp  glimmers 
darkly  on  the  table,  the  tagged  laces  are  laid  aside, 
and  Bunyan,  alone,  is  busy  with  his  Bible,  the 


144  BUNYAN    IN    PRISON. 

Concordance,  and  his  peri,  ink,  and  paper.  He 
writes  as  though  joy  did  make  him  write.  His 
pale,  worn  countenance  is  lighted  with  a  fire,  as 
if  reflected  from  the  radiant  jasper  walls  of  the 
Celestial  City.  He  writes,  and  smiles,  and  clasps 
his  hands,  and  looks  upward,  and  blesses  God  for 
his  goodness,  and  then  again  turns  to  his  writing, 
and  then  again  becomes  so  entranced  with  a  pas- 
sage of  scripture,  the  glory  of  which  the  Holy  Spi- 
rit lets  in  upon  his  soul,  that  he  is  forced,  as  it  were, 
to  lay  aside  all  his  labors,  and  give  himself  to  the 
sweet  work  of  his  closing  evening's  devotions.  The 
last  you  see  of  him  for  the  night,  he  is  alone, 
kneeling  on  the  floor  of  his  prison  ;  he  is  alone, 
with  God. 

Hear  him  when  he  speaks  of  the  blessedness  he 
thus  enjoyed  :  "  I  never  had,  in  all  my  life,  so  great 
an  inlet  into  the  word  of  God,  as  now.  Those 
scriptures  that  I  saw  nothing  in  before,  are  made, 
in  this  place  and  state,  to  shine  upon  me.  Some- 
times, when  I  have  been  in  the  savor  of  them,  I 
have  been  able  to  laugh  at  destruction,  and  to  fear 
neither  the  horse  nor  his  rider.  I  have  had  sweet 
sights  of  the  forgiveness  of  my  sins  in  this  place, 
and  of  my  being  with  Jesus  in  another  world.  O, 
the  Mount  Sion,  the  heavenly  Jerusalem,  the  innu- 
merable company  of  angels,  and  God,  the  Judge 
of  all,  and  the  spirits  of  just  men  made  perfect, 
and  Jesus,  have  been  sweet  to  me  in  this  place ! 
I  have  seen  that  here,  which  I  am  persuaded  I 
shall  never,  in  this  world,  be  able  to  express.  I 
have  seen  a  truth  in  this  Scripture,  '  Whom,  having 
not  seen,  ye  love ;  in  whom,  though  now  ye  see 


BUNYAN    IN    PRISON.  145 

him  not,  yet,  believing,  ye  rejoice  with  joy  unspeak- 
able and  full  of  glory.' ' 

And  where,  and  by  whom,  and  for  what,  is  this 
man  imprisoned  ?  In  a  Christian  land,  by  an  Es- 
tablished Church,  for  -preaching  the  Gospel  to  the 
poor,  the  ignorant,  the  destitute,  and  for  not  praying 
with  a  Common  Prayer  Book  !  For  this  a  heaven- 
commissioned  minister  of  Jesus  Christ  languishes 
twelve  years  in  prison  !  For  this  he  is  kneeling  on 
the  cold  stone  floor  of  a  narrow  cell,  in  secret  with 
his  God,  because  he  chose,  without  a  commission 
from  the  government,  to  worship  God  in  public, 
and  to  lead  the  devotions  of  others,  by  the  Scrip- 
tures merely,  without  the  liturgical  form  imposed, 
by  the  State,  upon  the  conscience.  Yes  !  astounding 
as  the  fact  may  seem,  John  Bunyan  is  shut  up  within 
iron  bars  and  stone  walls,  as  men  would  shut  up  a 
wild  beast  or  a  murderer,  because  he  would  pray 
without  a  Common  Prayer  Book  !  The  only  paral- 
lel instance  of  persecution  is  to  be  found  in  the 
case  of  Daniel,  thrown  by  an  oriental  despot 
into  the  lions'  den,  for  praying  to  God  without  the 
State  liturgy.  The  cases  are  strikingly  similar, 
the  concoction  of  bigotry  very  much  the  same. 
All  the  presidents  of  the  kingdom,  the  governors 
and  the  princes,  the  counsellors  and  the  captains, 
had  consulted  together  to  establish  a  royal  statute, 
and  to  make  a  firm  decree,  that  whosoever  shall 
ask  a  petition  of  any  god  or  man  for  thirty  days, 
save  of  thee,  O  King,  he  shall  be  cast  into  the  den 
of  lions.  Then  Daniel,  with  his  windows  open 
towards  Jerusalem,  eschewing  the  king's  liturgy, 
kneeled  upon  his  knees  without  %  three  times  a 
19 


146  BUNYAN    IN    PRISON. 

day,  and  prayed  and  gave  thanks  before  his  God, 
as  he  did  aforetime.  Then  these  men  assembled, 
and  found  Daniel  praying  and  making  supplications 
before  his  God  ;  so  they  hasted  with  their  accusa- 
tion, and  under  the  king's  royal  signet,  caused 
Daniel  to  be  thrown  into  the  den  of  lions,  because 
they  found  him  praying  and  making  supplications 
before  his  God. 

And  so  did  the  sheriffs  to  Bunyan ;  they  found 
him  praying  without  the  Common  Prayer  Book, 
in  a  place  not  permitted  by  the  decree  of  the 
king ;  they  found  him  with  the  Bible  in  his 
hand,  worshipping  God  in  a  conventicle,  and  forth- 
with, according  to  the  king's  decree,  they  threw 
him  into  prison,  to  remain  there,  for  no  crime  what- 
ever, twelve  years,  as  a  common  malefactor ! 
But  they  were  years  of  mercy,  comfort,  glory. 
He  has  himself  given  some  account  of  his  own 
blessedness  in  this  tribulation.  "  Many  more  of 
the  dealings  of  God  towards  me,"  says  he,  "  I 
might  relate,  but  these,  out  of  the  spoils  wron  in 
battle,  have  I  dedicated  to  maintain  the  house  of 
God." 

And  now  we  will  turn  to  another  scene  during  the 
same  period,  in  the  city  of  London.  It  is  in  the 
midst  of  the  plague.  The  grass  is  growing  in  the 
streets.  The  red  cross  is  marked  upon  the  houses, 
the  dead-cart  is  moving  from  street  to  street,  with  its 
melancholy  bell,  and  the  hoarse  wailing  cry  of  the 
grave's-man  reverberates  through  the  deserted 
passages,  Bring  out  your  dead  !  The  pulpits  have 
been  forsaken  of  the  established  clergy,  but  holy 
men  of  God,  persecuted  of  the  Church  and  State, 


BUNYAN    IN     PRISON.  147 

and  forbidden  to  preach  because  of  their  Noncon- 
formity, have  entered  the  vacant  churches,  and  are 
"  holding  forth  the  word  of  life,"  in  the  face  of 
death,  to  trembling  multitudes,  in  pulpits  from 
which  they  had  been  driven  with  penal  inflictions 
in  a  season  of  health  !  They  preach  as  dying  unto 
dying  men ;  hearers  one  day,  sick  the  next,  and 
dead  the  next.  They  preach  and  listen,  as  though 
never  to  preach  or  listen  again.  But  while  God  is 
consuming  the  people  by  these  judgments,  and  the 
Nonconformists,  fearless  of  death,  are  laboring  to 
save  men's  souls,  King  Charles  is  revelling  with 
his  dissolute  court  at  Oxford,  and  contriving  with 
his  Parliament  and  clergy,  removed  thither  from 
London  for  fear  of  the  Plague,  an  additional  act  of 
persecution,  to  drive,  these  fearless  ministers,  whom 
death  itself  cannot  stop  from  preaching,  beyond 
the  very  limits  of  cities,  towns  and  villages  !  The 
impiety  of  such  proceedings  could  not  have  been 
much  greater,  had  they  passed  a  law  enacting  that 
if  any  man  attempted  to  be  saved  out  of  the  es- 
tablished church,  he  should  forthwith  be  consigned 
to  eternal  perdition.  "  So  little,"  says  Baxter, 
"  did  the  sense  of  God's  terrible  judgments,  or 
of  the  necessities  of  many  hundred  thousand  ig- 
norant souls,  or  the  groans  of  the  poor  people  for 
the  teaching  which  they  had  lost,  or  the  fear  of  the 
great  and  final  reckoning,  affect  the  hearts  of  the 
prelatists,  or  stop  them  in  their  way."  It  is  a  fear- 
ful picture  of  impiety,  but  nevertheless  a  picture  of 
the  times. 

We  return,  in  the  next  scene,  to  Bunyan's  prison. 
The  graphic  dialogue  forms  so  instructive  a  sketch  in 


148  BUNYAN    IN    PRISON. 

manner  as  in  matter,  that  it  shall  be  given  in  his  own 
words.  After  he  had  laid  in  jail  for  some  time, 
the  justices  sent  their  clerk  of  the  peace,  Mr.  Cobb, 
to  admonish  him  and  demand  his  submission.  This 
man  sent  for  Bunyan,  and  when  he  was  come  to  him, 
he  said, 

Cobb.  Neighbor  Bunyan,  how  do  you  do  1 

Bun.  I  thank  you  sir,  said  I,  very  well,  blessed 
be  the  Lord. 

Cobb.  Saith  he,  I  come  to  tell  you  that  it  is  de- 
sired you  would  submit  yourself  to  the  laws  of  the 
land,  or  else  at  the  next  sessions  it  will  go  worse 
with  you,  even  to  be  sent  away  out  of  the  nation, 
or  else  worse  than  that. 

Bun.  I  said  that  I  did  desire  to  demean  myself 
in  the  world  both  as  becometh  a  man  and  a 
Christian. 

Cobb.  But,  saith  he,  you  must  submit  to  the 
laws  of  the  land,  and  leave  off  those  meetings 
which  you  were  wont  to  have  ;  for  the  statute 
law  is  directly  against  it ;  and  I  am  sent  to  you 
by  the  justices  to  tell  you  that  they  do  intend  to 
prosecute  the  law  against  you,  if  you  submit  not. 

Bunyan  made  answer  to  this  that  the  law  by 
which  he  was  in  prison  neither  reached  himself 
nor  his  meetings,  being  directed  only  against  those 
who  met  for  wicked  treasonable  purposes. 

The  clerk  argued  that  Bunyan  ought  to  consider 
it  liberty  enough,  if  permitted  to  speak  to  his  neigh- 
bor privately  and  alone  on  the  subject  of  religion  ; 
and  added  that  it  was  his  private  meetings  that  the 
law  was  against. 

Bun.  Sir,  said  I,  if  I  may  do  good  to  one  by  my 


BUNYAN    IN    PRISON.  149 

discourse,  why  may  I  not  do  good  to  two  ?  And  if 
to  two,  why  not  to  four,  and  so  to  eight,  and  so 
forth.  Bunyan's  arithmetical  progression  would 
soon  make  a  congregation.  Ay,  saith  Cobb,  and 
to  an  hundred,  I  warrant  you. 

Bun.  Yes  sir,  said  I,  I  think  I  should  not  be 
forbid  to  do  as  much  good  as  I  can.  If  I,  by  dis- 
coursing, may  do  good  to  one,  surely,  by  the 
same  lawr,  I  may  do  good  to  many. 

Cobb.  The  law,  saith  he,  doth  expressly  forbid 
youi1  private  meetings,  therefore  they  are  not  to  be 
tolerated. 

Bunyan  argued  again  that  the  law  only  intended 
mischievous  meetings. 

Cobb.  But,  good  man  Bunyan,  said  he,  me- 
thinks  you  need  not  stand  so  strictly  upon  this 
one  thing,  as  to  have  meetings  of  such  public 
assemblies.  Cannot  you  submit,  and  notwith- 
standing do  as  much  good  as  you  can  in  a 
neighborly  way,  without  having  such  meetings  1 
You  may  come  to  the  public  assemblies  and  hear. 
What  though  you  do  not  preach,  you  may  hear : 
do  not  think  yourself  so  well  enlightened,  and  that 
you  have  received  a  gift  so  far  above  others,  but 
that  you  may  hear  other  men  preach. 

Bunyan  answered  that  he  was  as  willing  to  be 
taught,  as  to  give  instruction,  and  that  he  looked 
upon  it  as  his  duty  to  do  both. 

Cobb.  But,  said  he,  what  if  you  should  forbear 
awhile,  and  sit  still,  till  you  see  further  how  things 
will  go  ? 

And  now  comes  into  view  one  of  the  mighty 
impulses,  which  Bunyan  had  gained,  doubtless 


150  BUNYAN    IN    PRISON. 

from  the  Book  of  Martyrs,  which  had  come 
sweeping  down  through  the  current  of  time  and 
revolution,  from  John  Wickliffe  ;  Wickliffe's  soul 
and  Banyan's  meeting  and  communing  together, 
across  the  gulf  of  more  than  two  hundred  years,  in 
this  passage,  as  Bunyan's  and  Luther's  had  done, 
to  such  powerful  purpose,  in  the  great  Reformer's 
Commentary  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians. 

Sir,  said  Bunyan,  as  if  he  had  been  speaking 
scripture  ;  and  it  shows  what  inspiring  power  the 
Book  of  Martyrs  had  over  him  ;  Sir,  said  Bun- 
yan, Wickliffe  saith,  that  he  which  leaveth  off 
preaching  and  hearing  of  the  word  of  God  for 
fear  of  excommunication  of  men,  he  is  already  ex- 
communicated of  God,  and  shall,  in  the  day  of 
judgment,  be  counted  a  traitor  to  Christ. 

Cobb.  Ay,  saith  he,  they  that  do  not  hear. 

Bun.  But,  sir,  said  I,  he  saith,  he  that  shall  leave 
off  either  preaching  or  hearing.  That  is,  if  he 
hath  received  a  gift  for  edification,  it  is  his  sin,  if 
he  doth  not  lay  it  out  in  a  way  of  exhortation 
and  counsel,  according  to  the  proportion  of  his  gift, 
as  well  as  to  spend  his  time  altogether  in  hearing 
others  preach. 

Cobb.  But,  said  he,  how  shall  we  know  that  you 
have  received  a  gift  ? 

Bun.  Said  I,  let  any  man  hear  and  search,  and 
prove  the  doctrine  by  the  Bible. 

Cobb.  But  will  you  be  willing,  said  he,  that  two 
indifferent  persons  shall  determine  the  case,  and 
will  you  stand  by  their  judgment? 

Bun.  I  said,  are  they  infallible  ? 

There  outspoke  the  true  Protestant. 


BUNYAN   IN    PRISON.  151 

Cobb.  He  said  no. 

Bun.  Then  said  I,  it  is  possible  my  judgment 
may  be  as  good  as  theirs  ;  but  yet  I  will  pass  by 
either,  and  in  this  matter  be  judged  by  the  Scrip- 
ture. I  am  sure  that  is  infallible,  and  cannot  err. 

Cobb.  But,  said  he,  who  shall  be  judge  between 
you,  for  you  take  the  Scriptures  one  way  and  they 
another. 

Bun.  I  said  the  Scriptures  should,  and  that  by 
comparing  one  scripture  with  another ;  for  that  will 
open  itself,  if  it  be  rightly  compared.  As  for  in- 
stance, naming  several  passages. 

Cobb.  But  are  you  willing,  said  he,  to  stand  to 
the  judgment  of  the  Church? 

Bun.  Yes,  sir,  said  I,  to  the  approbation  of  the 
Church  of  God  ;  the  Church's  judgment  is  best  ex- 
pressed in  Scripture.  This  answer  of  Bunyan 
was  admirable  ;  nor  can  any  one  do  other  than 
admire  the  wisdom,  patience,  and  pertinency,  as 
well  as  sometimes  wit,  and  always  calmness,  of 
Bunyan's  replies. 

Well,  neighbor  Bunyan,  said  Mr.  Cobb,  indeed,  I 
would  wish  you  seriously  to  consider  of  these  things, 
between  this  and  the  quarter  sessions,  and  to  sub- 
mit yourself.  You  may  do  much  good,  if  you  con- 
tinue still  in  the  land;  but  alas,  what  benefit  will 
it  be  to  your  friends,  or  what  good  can  it  do  to 
them,  if  you  should  be  sent  away  beyond  the  seas 
into  Spain  or  Constantinople,  or  some  other  remote 
part  of  the  world  1  Pray,  be  ruled. 

Jailor.  Indeed,  sir,  I  hope  he  will  be  ruled. 

Bun.  I  shall  desire,  said  I,  in  all  godliness  and 
honesty,  to  behave  myself  in  the  nation  whilst  I 


152  BUNYAN  IN    PRISON. 

am  in  it.  And  if  I  must  be  so  dealt  withal  as  you 
say,  I  hope  God  will  help  me  to  bear  what  they 
shall  lay  upon  me.  I  know  no  evil  that  I  have 
done  in  this  matter  to  be  so  used.  I  speak  as  in 
the  presence  of  God. 

Cobb.  You  know,  saith  he,  that  the  Scripture 
saith,  The  powers  that  be  are  ordained  of  God. 

Bun.  I  said  yes,  and  that  I  was  to  submit  to  the 
king  as  supreme,  also  to  the  governors,  as  to  them 
that  are  sent  by  him. 

Cobb.  Well,  then,  said  he,  the  king  commands 
you,  that  you  should  not  have  any  private  meetings, 
because  it  is  against  his  law ;  and  he  is  ordained 
of  God,  therefore  you  should  not  have  any. 

How  was  Bunyan  to  get  over  this ?  "I  told 
him,"  said  he,  "  that  Paul  did  own  the  powers  that 
were  in  his  day  to  be  of  God ;  and 'yet  he  was  often 
in  prison  under  them  for  all  that.  And  also,  though 
Jesus  Christ  told  Pilate  that  he  had  no  power 
against  him  but  of  God,  yet  he  died  under  the  same 
Pilate  ;  and  yet,  said  I,  I  hope  you  will  not  say  that 
either  Paul  or  Christ  did  deny  magistracy,  and  so 
sinned  against  God  in  slighting  the  ordinance. 
Sir,  said  I,  the  law  hath  provided  two  ways  of  obey- 
ing ;  the  one  to  do  that  which  in  my  conscience  I 
do  believe  that  I  am  bound  to  do  actively,  and 
where  I  cannot  obey  actively,  then  I  am  willing  to 
lie  down,  and  to  suffer  what  they  shall  do  unto  me. 
At  this  he  sat  still,  and  said  no  more  ;  which  when 
he  had  done,  I  did  thank  him  for  his  civil  and  meek 
discoursing  with  me  ;  and  so  we  parted.  Oh,  that 
we  might  meet  in  heaven  !" 

This  was  indeed  a  civil  and  meek  discoursing  in 


BUNYAN    IN    PRISON.  153 

comparison  with  the  impious  treatment  Bunyan 
received  from  the  justices  in  a  preceding  examina- 
tion. And  so  they  parted.  But  after  this,  Bun- 
yan's  wife,  while  he  lay  in  prison,  undertook  to  pre- 
sent a  petition  in  his  behalf  to  the  judges.  Three 
times  she  made  the  attempt,  twice  to  Lord  Chief 
Justice  Hale,  and  nothing  could  daunt  her,  but  she 
would  receive  a  hearing.  The  scene  is  worthy  the 
pencil  of  some  great  painter,  where,  without  a 
creature  to  befriend  or  sustain  her,  this  young  and 
trembling  woman,  unaccustomed  and  abashed  at 
such  presences,  entered  the  court-room,  and  stood 
before  the  judges,  in  the  midst  of  the  crowd  of 
justices  and  gentry  of  the  country  assembled.  She 
addressed  herself,  with  a  trembling  heart,  directly 
to  Lord  Chief  Justice  Hale,  who  wore  in  his  coun- 
tenance so  clearly,  the  lines  of  that  gentleness  and 
goodness  for  which  he  was  illustrious,  that  the 
courage  of  the  wife  was  somewhat  supported,  even 
amidst  the  frowns  and  wrathful  words  of  the  other 
justices. 

My  Lord,  said  she  to  Judge  Hale,  I  make  bold 
to  come  once  again  to  your  lordship,  to  know  what 
may  be  done  to  my  husband. 

Bunyan  loved  to  put  these  examinations  in  the 
form  of  a  dialogue  ;  it  made  every  thing  more 
vivid  to  his  mind ;  and  in  this  case  he  wrote  down 
the  account  from  the  lips  of  his  courageous  wife, 
just  as  the  scene  was  evolved  in  the  court  room. 

Judge  Hale  answered,  Woman,  I  told  thee  before 
I  could  do  thee  no  good,  because  they  have  taken 
that  for  a  conviction,  which  thy  husband  spoke  at  the 

20 


154  BUNYAN    IN    PRISON. 

sessions  ;  and  unless  there  be  something  done  to 
undo  that,  I  can  do  thee  no  good. 

Woman.  My  Lord,  said  she,  he  is  kept  unlaw- 
fully in  prison ;  they  clapped  him  up  before  there 
were  any  proclamation  against  the  meetings  ;  the 
indictment  also  is  false  ;  besides,  they  never  asked 
him  whether  he  was  guilty  or  no  ;  neither  did  he 
confess  the  indictment. 

All  this  was  true  ;  but  one  of  the  justices,  whom 
she  knew  not,  said,  My  Lord,  he  was  lawfully  con- 
victed. 

Woman.  It  is  false,  said  she ;  for  when  they  said 
to  him,  Do  you  confess  the  indictment  1  he  said 
only  this,  that  he  had  been  at  several  meetings, 
both  where  there  was  preaching  of  the  word  and 
prayer,  and  that  they  had  God's  presence  among 
them. 

Judge  Twisdon.  Whereat  Judge  Twisdon  an- 
swered very  angrily,  saying,  What,  you  think  we 
can  do  what  we  list ;  your  husband  is  a  breaker  of 
the  peace,  and  is  convicted  by  the  law.  Whereupon 
Judge  Hale  called  for  the  statute  book. 

Woman.  But,  said  she,  my  Lord,  he  was  not 
lawfully  convicted. 

Chester.  Then  Justice  Chester  said,  My  Lord, 
he  was  lawfully  convicted. 

Woman.  It  is  false,  said  she  ;  it  was  but  a  word 
of  discourse  that  they  took  for  conviction,  as  you 
heard  before. 

Chester.  But  it  is  recorded,  woman,  it  is  re- 
corded, says  Justice  Chester.  As  if  it  must  of 
necessity  be  true,  because  it  is  recorded.  With 
which  words  he  often  endeavored  to  stop  her 


BUNYAN    IN    PRISON.  155 

mouth,  having  no  other  argument  to  convince  her, 
but  it  is  recorded,  it  is  recorded. 

Woman.  My  Lord,  said  she,  I  was  awhile  since 
in  London,  to  see  if  I  could  get  my  husband's 
liberty,  and  there  I  spoke  with  my  Lord  Barkwood, 
one  of  the  House  of  Lords,  to  whom  I  delivered 
a  petition,  who  took  it  of  me,  and  presented  it  to 
some  of  the  rest  of  the  House  of  Lords  for  my  hus- 
band's releasement ;  who,  when  they  had  seen  it, 
they  said  that  they  could  not  release  him,  but  had 
committed  his  releasement  to  the  judges,  at  the 
next  assizes.  This  he  told  me  ;  and  now  I  come  to 
you  to  see  if  any  thing  can  be  done  in  this  business, 
and  you  give  neither  releasement  nor  relief.  To 
which  they  give  her  no  answer,  but  made  as  if  they 
heard  her  not.  Only  Justice  Chester  was  often  up 
with  this,  He  is  convicted,  and  it  is  recorded. 

Woman.  If  it  be,  it  is  false,  said  she. 

Chester.  My  Lord,  said  Justice  Chester,  he  is  a 
pestilent  fellow  ;  there  is  not  such  a  fellow  in  the 
country  again. 

Twisdon.  What,  will  your  husband  leave  preach- 
ing 1  If  he  will  do  so,  then  send  for  him. 

Bunyan's  wife  remembered  the  sublime  and  no- 
ble answer  of  her  husband,  If  I  were  out  of  the 
prison  to-day,  I  would  preach  the  Gospel  again  to- 
morrow, by  the  help  of  God.  My  lord,  said  she,  he 
dares  not  leave  preaching  as  long  as  he  can  speak. 

Twisdon.  See  here  ;  what  should  we  talk  any 
more  about  such  a  fellow ;  must  he  do  what  he 
lists  ?  He  is  a  breaker  of  the  peace. 

Woman.  She  told  him  again  that  he  desired  to 
live  peacably,  and  to  follow  his  calling,  that  his 


156  BUNYAN    IN    PRISON. 

family  might  be  maintained  ;  and  moreover,  my 
Lord,  I  have  four  small  children  that  cannot  help 
themselves,  of  which  one  is  blind,  and  have  nothing 
to  live  upon  but  the  charity  of  good  people.  This, 
with  some  other  affecting  distresses  which  she  told, 
troubled  Judge  Hale.  Alas,  poor  woman  !  said  he. 

Twisdon.  But  Judge  Twisdon  told  her  that  she 
made  poverty  her  cloak  ;  and  said,  moreover,  that 
he  understood  I  was  maintained  better  by  running 
up  and  down  in  preaching,  than  by  following  my 
calling. 

Hale.  What  is  his  calling,  said  Judge  Hale. 

Answer.  Then  some  of  the  company  that  stood 
by  said,  A  tinker,  my  lord. 

Woman.  Yes,  said  she,  and  because  he  is  a 
tinker,  and  a  poor  man,  therefore  he  is  despised, 
and  cannot  have  justice. 

Hale.  Then  Judge  Hale  answered  very  mildly, 
saying,  I  tell  thee,  woman,  seeing  it  is  so,  that  they 
have  taken  what  thy  husband  spake  for  a  conviction, 
thou  must  either  apply  thyself  to  the  king,  or  sue 
out  his  pardon,  or  get  a  writ  of  error. 

Chester.  But  when  Justice  Chester  heard  him 
give  her  this  counsel,  and  especially  as  she  sup- 
posed, because  he  spoke  of  a  writ  of  error,  he 
chafed,  and  seemed  to  be  very  much  offended,  say- 
ing, My  lord,  he  will  preach  and  do  what  he  lists. 

Woman.  He  preach eth  nothing  but  the  word  of 
God,  said  she. 

Twisdon.  He  preach  the  word  of  God  !  said 
Twisdon,  (and  withal  she  thought  he  would  have 
struck  her,)  he  runneth  up  and  down,  and  doth 
harm. 


BUNYAN    IN    PRISON.  157 

Woman.  No,  my  lord,  said  she,  it  is  not  so  ;  God 
hath  owned  him,  and  done  much  good  by  him. 

Twisdon.  God !  said  he ;  his  doctrine  is  the 
doctrine  of  the  devil. 

Woman.  My  lord,  said  she,  when  the  righteous 
Judge  shall  appear,  it  will  be  known,  that  his  doc- 
trine is  not  the  doctrine  of  the  devil. 

Twisdon.  My  lord,  said  he  to  Judge  Hale,  do 
not  mind  her,  but  send  her  away. 

Hale.  Then,  said  Judge  Hale,  I  am  sorry,  wo- 
man, that  I  cannot  do  thee  any  good ;  thou  must 
do  one  of  those  three  things  aforesaid,  namely : 
either  to  apply  thyself  to  the  king,  or  sue  out  his 
pardon,  or  get  a  writ  of  error ;  but  a  writ  of  error 
will  be  cheapest. 

Woman.  At  which  Chester  again  seemed  to  be 
in  a  chafe,  and  put  off  his  hat,  and,  as  she  thought, 
scratched  his  head  for  anger;  but  then  I  saw,  said 
she,  that  there  was  no  prevailing  to  have  my  hus- 
band sent  for,  though  I  often  desired  them  that  they 
would  send  for  him,  that  he  might  speak  for  him- 
self, telling  them  that  he  could  give  them  better 
satisfaction  than  I  could,  in  what  they  demanded 
of  him,  with  several  other  things  which  now  I  for- 
get. Only  this  I  remember,  that  though  I  was 
somewhat  timorous  at  my  first  entrance  into  the 
chamber,  yet  before  I  went  out  I  could  not  but 
break  forth  into  tears.,  not  so  much  because  they 
were  so  hard-hearted  against  me  and  my  husband, 
but  to  think  what  a  sad  account  such  poor  creatures 
will  have  to  give  at  the  coming  of  the  Lord,  when 
they  shall  there  answer  for  all  things  whatsoever 
they  have  done  in  the  body,  whether  it  be  good  or 
whether  it  be  evil. 


158  BUNYAN    IN    PRISON. 

Bunyan's  wife  was  a  partaker  of  his  own  spirit, 
a  heroine,  in  this  trying  situation,  of  no  ordinary 
stamp.  This  courageous  woman,  and  Lord  Chief 
Justice  Hale,  and  Bunyan,  have  long  since  met  in 
heaven,  but  how  little  could  they  recognize  each 
other's  character  on  earth !  How  little  could 
the  distressed,  insulted  wife  have  imagined,  that 
beneath  the  Judge's  ermine  there  was  beating  the 
heart  of  a  child  of  God,  a  man  of  humility,  integri- 
ty, and  prayer !  How  little  could  the  great,  learned, 
illustrious,  and  truly  pious  judge  have  dreamed, 
that  the  man,  the  obscure  tinker,  whom  he  was 
suffering  to  languish  in  prison  for  want  of  a  writ  of 
error,  would  one  day  be  the  subject  of  greater  admi- 
ration and  praise,  than  all  the  judges  in  the  king- 
dom of  Great  Britain  !  How  little  could  he  dream, 
that  from  that  narrow  cell  where  the  prisoner  was 
left  incarcerated,  and  cut  off  apparently  from  all 
usefulness,  a  glory  would  shine  out,  illustrating  the 
government  and  grace  of  God,  and  doing  more 
good  to  man,  than  all  the  prelates  and  judges  in  the 
reign  of  Charles  II.  put  together  had  accomplished  ! 

Twelve  full  years  Bunyan  remained  in  this  pri- 
son. He  wrote  several  works  while  there,  besides 
the  Pilgrim's  Progress,  among  which  was  a  work 
entitled,  "  A  Confession  of  my  Faith,  and  a  Reason 
of  my  Practice."  In  this  work,  written  but  a  short 
time  before  the  end  of  his  imprisonment,  he  makes 
a  more  distinct  allusion  to  the^  sufferings  of  his  in- 
carceration, than  he  was  wont  to  do.  "  Faith  and 
holiness,"  says  he,  "are  my  professed  principles, 
with  an  endeavor,  so  far  as  in  me  lieth,  to  be  at 
peace  with  all  men.  What  shall  I  say  ?  Let  mine 


BUNYAN    IN     PRISON.  159 

enemies  themselves  be  judges,  if  any  thing  in  these 
following  doctrines,  or  if  aught  that  any  man  hath 
heard  me  preach,  doth  or  hath,  according  to  the 
true  intent  of  my  words,  savored  either  of  heresy  or 
rebellion.  I  say  again,  let  they  themselves  be 
judges,  if  aught  they  find  in  my  writing  or  preach- 
ing, doth  render  me  worthy  of  almost  twelve  years 
imprisonment,  or  one  that  deserveth  to  be  hanged, 
or  banished  forever,  according  to  their  tremendous 
sentence.  But  if  nothing  will  do,  unless  I  make 
my  conscience  a  continual  butchery  and  slaughter- 
shop,  unless  putting  out  my  own  eyes,  I  commit  me 
to  the  blind  to  lead  me,  as  I  doubt  is  desired  by 
some,  I  have  determined,  the  Almighty  God  being 
my  help  and  shield,  yet  to  suffer,  if  frail  life 
might  continue  so  long,  even  till  the  moss  shall 
grow  on  mine  eye-brows,  rather  than  thus  to  vio- 
late my  faith  and  principles." 

When  John  Bunyan  was  first  thrown  into  prison, 
he  found  a  great  friend  in  the  jailor,  through  whose 
kindness  his  confinement,  previous  to  his  last  exa- 
mination, and  the  petition  of  his  wife,  was  not  at 
all  rigorous.  He  was  permitted  to  preach,  to  visit 
his  friends,  and  even  to  go  to  London.  It  is  re- 
lated of  him,  that  it  being  known  to  some  of  the 
persecuting  prelates  that  Bunyan  was  often  out  of 
prison,  they  sent  down  an  officer  to  talk -with  the 
jailor  on  the  subject ;  and  in  order  to  find  him  out 
he  was  to  arrive  there  in  the  middle  of  the  night. 
Bunyan  was  at  home  with  his  family,  but  so  restless 
that  he  could  not  sleep.  He  therefore  told  his 
wife  that  he  must  return  immediately.  He  did  so, 
and  the  jailor  blamed  him  for  coming  in  at  so  un- 


160  BUNYAN    IN    PRISON. 

seasonable  an  hour.  Early  in  the  morning  the 
messenger  came,  and  said,  "  Are  all  the  prisoners 
safe  ?"  "  Yes."  « Is  John  Bunyan  safe  ?"  "  Yes.," 
"  Let  me  see  him."  He  was  called  and  appeared, 
and  all  was  well.  After  the  messenger  left,  the 
jailor  said  to  Bunyan,  "Well,  you  may  go  out 
again  when  you  think  proper  ;  for  you  know  when 
to  return,  better  than  I  can  tell  you." 

Bunyan  made  use  of  his  liberty  at  this  time  to 
visit  his  fellow  Christians  in  London,  which,  says 
he,  "  my  enemies  hearing  of  were  so  angry,  that  they 
had  almost  cast  my  jailor  out  of  his  place,  threat- 
ening to  indict  him,  and  to  do  what  they  could 
against  him.  They  charged  me  also  that  I  went 
thither  to  plot  and  raise  division,  and  make  insur- 
rection, which,  God  knows,  was  a  slander  ;  where- 
upon my  liberty  was  more  straitened  than  it  was 
before,  so  that  I  must  not  look  out  of  the  door." 
From  this  severe  imprisonment  it  was  that  he 
wrote  his  Prison  Meditations,  dedicated  to  the  heart 
of  suffering  saints  and  reigning  sinners.  From  the 
character  of  these  stanzas,  we  should  deem  it  very 
probable  that  he  had  accustomed  himself  to  scrib- 
ble in  verse  before  his  imprisonment,  a  habit  with 
which  he  doubtless  solaced  not  a  few  of  the  hours 
in  his  little  cell.  Some  verses  in  his  meditations 
upon  the  four  last  things,  Death  and  Judgment, 
Heaven  and  Hell,  are  not  wanting  in  beauty.  His 
meditation  of  Heaven  sprung  from  its  vivid  fore- 
tastes. 

What  gladness  shall  possess  our  heart, 

When  we  shall  see  these  things! 
What  light  and  life  in  every  part 

Rise  like  eternal  springs ! 


BUNYAN   IN    PRISON.  161 

O,  blessed  face  ;  O,  holy  grace, 

When  shall  we  see  this  day  ? 
Lord,  fetch  us  to  this  goodly  place, 

We  humbly  to  thee  pray. 

Thus,  when  in  heavenly  harmony 

These  blessed  saints  appear, 
Adorned  with  grace  and  majesty, 

What  gladness  will  be  there ! 
Thus  shall  we  see,  thus  shall  we  be, 

O,  would  the  day  were  come ! 
Lord  Jesus,  take  us  up  to  thee, 

To  this  desired  home. 

Angels  we  also  shall  behold, 

When  we  on  high  ascend, 
Each  shining  like  to  men  of  gold, 

And  on  the  Lord  attend. 
These  goodly  creatures,  full  of  grace, 

Shall  stand  about  the  throne, 
Each  one  with  lightning  in  his  face, 

And  shall  to  us  be  known. 

There  cherubim,  with  one  accord, 

Continually  do  cry — 
Ah,  holy,  holy,  holy  Lord, 

And  heavenly  majesty ! 
These  will  us  in  their  arms  embrace, 

And  welcome  us  to  rest, 
And  joy  to  see  us  clad  with  grace, 

And  of  the  heavens  possest. 

Doubtless  it  was  such  music  in  his  soul,  such 
visions  before  him,  and  such  panting  desires  after 
heaven,  that  set  him  to  the  composition  of  the  Pil- 
grim's Progress.  He  wrote  a  book  of  poems  enti- 
tled, "Divine  Emblems,  or  Temporal  Things 
Spiritualized,  fitted  for  the  use  of  Boys  and  Girls." 
Some  of  them  are  very  beautiful,  revealing  the  true 
poet ;  passages  there  are,  which  would  not  dishonor 
Chaucer  or  Shakspeare,  and  which  show  to  what 
great  excellence,  as  a  poet,  Bunyan  might  have 
attained,  had  he  dedicated  himself  to  the  effort. 
What  he  wrote,  he  wrote  with  the  utmost  simplici- 
ty, and  in  the  same  pure,  idiomatic  language  which 


162  BUNYAN  IN    PRISON. 

is  so  delightful  in  the  Pilgrim's  Progress.     Here  is 
a  ballad  of  the  child  with  the  bird  on  the  bush,  and 
as  a  child's  ballad,  it  is  one  of  the  sweetest,  mo? 
natural  things  in  the  language. 

THE     CHILD     AND     THE     BIRD. 

My  little  bird,  how  canst  thou  sit 

And  sing  amidst  so  many  thorns  \ 
Let  me  but  hold  upon  thee  get, 

My  love  with  honor  thee  adorns. 
Thou  art  at  present  little  worth. 

Five  farthings  none  will  give  for  thee : 
But  prithee  little  bird  come  forth, 

Thou  of  more  value  art  to  me. 

Tis  true,  it  is  sunshine  to-day, 

To-morrow,  birds  will  have  a  storm ; 
My  pretty  one,  come  thou  away, 

My  bosom  then  shall  keep  thee  warm. 
Thou  subject  art  to  cold  o'  nights, 

When  darkness  is  thy  covering ; 
At  day  thy  danger's  great  by  kites, 

How  canst  thou  then  sit  there  and  sing ! 

Thy  food  is  scarce  and  scanty  too, 

'Tis  worms  and  trash  which  thou  dost  eat, 
Thy  present  state  I  pity  do, 

Come,  I'll  provide  thee  better  meat. 
I'll  feed  thee  with  white  bread  and  milk, 

And  sugar-plums,  if  thou  them  crave ; 
I'll  cover  thee  with  finest  silk, 

That  from  the  cold  I  may  thee  save. 

My  father's  palace  shall  be  thine, 

Yea,  in  it  thou  shall  sit  and  sing ; 
My  little  bird,  if  thou'ltbe  mine, 

The  whole  year  round  shall  be  thy  spring. 
I'll  teach  thee  all  the  notes  at  court, 

Unthought-of  music  thou  shall  play, 
And  all  that  thither  do  resort, 

Shall  praise  thee  for  it  every  day. 

I'll  keep  thee  safe  from  cat  and  cur, 

No  manner  o'  harm  shall  come  to  thee ; 
Yea,  I  will  be  thy  succorer, 

My  bosom  shall  thy  cabin  be. 
But  lo,  behold,  the  bird  is  gone ! 

These  charmings  would  not  make  her  yield ; 
The  child's  left  at  the  bush  alone, 

The  bird  flies  yonder  o'er  the  field. 


BUNYAN    IN    PRISON.  163 

COMPARISON. 

The  child  of  Christ  an  emblem  is ; 

The  bird  to  sinners  I  compare ; 
The  thorns  are  like  those  sins  of  theirs, 

Which  do  surround  them  every  where. 
Her  songs,  her  food,  her  sunshine  day, 

Are  emblems  of  those  foolish  toys, 
Which  to  destruction  leads  the  way, 

The  fruit  of  worldly,  empty  joys. 

The  arguments  this  child  doth  choose 

To  draw  to  him  a  bird  thus  wild, 
Shows  Christ  familiar  speech  doth  use 

To  make  the  sinner  reconciled. 
The  bird,  in  that  she  takes  her  wing 

To  speed  her  from  him  after  all, 
Shows  us  vain  man  loves  any  thing 

Much  better  than  the  heavenly  call. 

Now  if  this  ballad  had  been  found  among  the 
poems  of  Wordsworth,  with  one  or  two  touches  of 
his  peculiar  coloring,  it  would  have  been  regarded 
as  one  of  his  happiest  examples  of  the  artless  sim- 
plicity and  truth  of  nature.  But  with  Bunyan  these 
things  were  thrown  off  without  any  elaborate  effort, 

.  in  such  language  as  he  might  naturally  command, 
not  with  studied  simplicity,  but  in  such  simplicity  of 
style,  matter  and  language  as  his  childlike  musings 
naturally  fell  into.  And  this  constitutes  their 
charm.  He  says  himself  that  he  could  have  written 
in  higher  strains,  but  he  would  not  attempt  it ;  arid 
well  for  the  poetry  it  was  that  he  did  not ;  instead 
of  the  childlike  carelessness  and  naturalness, 
which  pleases  older  minds  as  well  as  children,  he 

*  might  have  fallen  into  a  stiffness  and  affected 
elegance,  that  would  have  pleased  none.  As  it  is, 
there  is  great  genius  and  beauty  in  these  hymns  for 
infant  minds.  In  the  introduction,  to  the  courteous 
reader,  Bunyan  says,  in  a  vein  of  vigorous  and  well 
directed  satire, 


164  BUNYAN  IN    PRISON. 

The  title  page  will  show,  if  thou  wilt  look, 
Who  are  the  proper  subjects  of  this  book ; 
They're  boys  and  girls  of  all  sorts  and  degrees, 
From  those  of  age,  to  children  on  their  knees. 
Thus  comprehensive  am  I  in  my  notions, 
They  tempt  me  to  it  by  their  childish  motions. 
We  now  have  boys  with  beards,  and  girls  that  be 
Huge  as  old  women,  wanting  gravity. 

Then  do  not  blame  me,  since  I  thus  describe  'em, 
Flatter  I  may  not,  lest  thereby  I  bribe  'em 
To  have  a  better  judgment  of  themselves 
Than  wise  men  have  of  babies  on  their  shelves. 
Their  antic  tricks,  fantastic  modes  and  way 
Show  they,  like  very  boys  and  girls,  do  play 
With  all  the  frantic  fooleries  of  the  age, 
And  that  in  open  view  as  on  a  stage. 
Our  bearded  men  do  act  like  beardless  boys, 
Our  women  please  themselves  with  childish  toys. 

Our  ministers  long  time  by  word  and  pen 
Dealt  with  them,  counting  them  not  boys  but  men ; 
They  shot  their  thunders  at  them,  and  their  toys, 
But  hit  them  not,  for  they  were  girls  and  boys, 
The  better  charged,  the  wilder  still  they  shot, 
Or  else  so  high,  these  dwarfs  they  touched  not. 
Instead  of  men,  they  found  them  girls  and  boys, 
To  nought  addicted  but  to  childish  toys. 

I  repeat  it,  that  this  is  pleasant,  good  natured, 
and  instructive  satire  ;  its  vein  of  strong  sense  and 
native  humor  may  remind  us  of  our  elder,  early 
poets,  whom,  indeed,  Bunyan  in  his  poetry  re- 
sembles not  a  little,  and  with  whom  he  would  have 
taken  the  highest  rank  as  a  poet,  had  Divine  Pro- 
vidence directed  his  native  gifts  to  be  developed 
that  way.  Bunyan  apologizes  for  seeming  to  play 
the  fool,  that  he  might,  like  Paul,  by  all  means,  gain 
some,  and  he  hopes  that  even  men  of  graver  fancies 
may  possibly  be  taken  by  his  homely  rhymes. 

Some,  I  persuade  me,  will  be  finding  fanlt, 
Concluding,  here  I  trip,  and  there  I  halt ; 
No  doubt  some  could  those  grovelling  notions  raise 
*  By  fine-spun  terms,  that  challenge  might  the  bays. 


BUNYAN    IN   PRISON.  165 

Should  all  be  forced  to  lay  their  brains  aside. 

That  cannot  regulate  the  glowing  tide 

By  this  or  that  man's  fancy,  \ve  should  have 

The  wise  unto  the  fool  become  a  slave. 

What,  though  my  text  seems  mean,  my  morals  be 

Grave,  as  if  fetched  from  a  sublimer  tree ! 

And  if  some  better  handle  can  a  fly, 

Than  some  a  text,  wherefore  should  we  deny, 

Their  making  proof  or  good  experiment 

Of  smallest  things  great  mischiefs  to  prevent. 

I  could,  were  I  so  pleased,  use  higher  strains, 
And  for  applause  on  tenters  stretch  my  brains ; 
But  what  needs  that  ?    The  arrow  out  of  sight 
Does  not  the  sleeper  nor  the  watchman  fright ; 
To  shoot  too  high  doth  make  but  children  gaze ; 
*Tis  that  which  hits  the  man  doth  him  amaze. 

As  for  the  ineonsiderableness 
Of  things,  by  which  I  do  my  mind  express  ; 
May  I  by  them  bring  some  good  thing  to  pass, 
As  Samson,  with  the  jaw  bone  of  an  ass  ; 
Or  as  brave  Shamgar  with  his  ox's  goad, 
(Both  things  unmanly,  not  for  war  in  mode,) 
I  have  my  end,  though  I  myself  expose, 
For  God  will  have  the  glory  at  the  close. 

This  was  ever  Bunyan's  disinterestedness  and 
forgetfulness  of  self.  So  he  might  glorify  God,  it 
was  no  matter  what  became  of  his  own  reputation, 
his  own  will.  Human  applause  he  sought  not,  and 
while  writing  the  most  original  work  of  genius  pro- 
duced in  his  age,  he  wrote  with  an  absolute  uncon- 
sciousness of  fame,  and  a  disregard  of  it,  such  as 
marked  the  character  of  no  other  writer  of  the 
period.  Baxter  was  an  eminently  holy  man,  and 
his  mind  wrought  under  holy  influences,  but  never 
with  such  unconsciousness  of  greatness,  such  for- 
getfulness of  self.  Yet  the  maxim  of  both  was, 
To  God  alone  be  the  glory ! 

These  Divine  Emblems,  of  which  I  have  spoken, 
are  much  in  the  manner  of  Quarles,  whose  poetry 
Bunyan  may  have  been  acquainted  with,  as  the 


166  BUNYAN    IN    PRISON. 

Puritans  were  fond  of  it,  and  who  died  while 
Bunyan  was  in  prison.  Some  of  them  remind  us 
of  the  significant  things  seen  by  Christian  in  the 
house  of  the  Interpreter.  It  was  thus  that  Bunyan 
filled  up  his  vacant  seasons,  and  with  various 
sweetness  recreated  himself  in  prison.  While  he 
was  musing,  the  fire  burned.  When  he  began  his 
Pilgrim's  Progress,  he  was  surprised  into  it,  for 
he  was  writing  another  book,  which  he  had  nearly 
finished,  but.  as  he  was  penning  some  things  con- 
cerning the  race  of  the  saints  in  the  day  of  the 
gospel,  his  thoughts  fell  suddenly  into  the  form 
of  an  allegory  in  a  number  of  particulars,  which 
he  put  down  ;  these  grew  into  more,  and  again  con- 
tinued to  multiply,  as  he  was  attracted  from  fancy 
to  fancy,  and  still  he  wrote  them  down,  till  he  said 
within  himself,  If  I  go  on  at  this  rate,  it  will  be 
ad  infinitum,  and  I  shall  never  finish  the  book 
I  am  already  about.  Wherefore  my  thick-corning 
fancies  I'll  put  you  by  yourselves,  and  when  I  have 
leisure  from  the  work  I  have  undertaken,  then  I 
will  return  to  you. 

Thus  his  work  so  produced,  came  to  be  the 
pure,  artless,  spontaneous  creation  of  piety  and 
genius.  There  was  scarcely  a  conscious  effort 
in  the  writing  of  it ;  nay,  rather  a  restraint  of 
its  exquisite  sweetness,  till  such  moments  as  he 
could  attend  to  and  take  down  the  lovely  images, 
the  fervent  thoughts,  that  were  crowding  one 
another  in  his  mind,  and  seeking  for  utterance. 
It  was  but  for  him  to  say  the  word,  to  say  to 
himself,  Now  my  favorite  meditations  I  release 
you ;  and  suddenly  as  songsters  from  a  cage,  his 


BUNYAN    IN    PRISON.  167 

thoughts  flew  from  him,  as  has  been  beautifully 
said  of  Dr.  Payson's  conversation,  in  every  pos- 
sible variety  of  beauty  and  harmony,  like  birds  from 
a  South  American  forest.  His  vivid  imagination 
filled  his  lonely  cell  with  these  realities;  and  it 
would  appear  that  only  when  he  was  alone  did  his 
genius  brood  over  this  sacred  work  ;  in  secrecy  and 
silence  did  he  pursue  it ;  it  was  a  joy  of  his  heart, 
with  which  heaven  itself  mingled,  and  lent  its  own 
blessedness,  but  with  which  no  stranger  could  in- 
termeddle. 

That  this  was  the  manner  of  the  suggestion  and 
production  of  this  great  work  of  genius,  is  clear 
from  Bunyan's  own  amusing  and  instructive  pre- 
face ;  and  it  is  one  of  the  most  curious  things  in 
all  the  history  of  literature,  to  be  admitted  thus  into 
the  secret  developments  of  spontaneous  genius  in 
a  great  writer's  mind,  on  a  work,  the  subject  of 
which  possesses  the  writer  as  with  the  power  of  an 
angel,  instead  of  being  possessed  by  him  ;  carries 
him  away  with  its  sweetness,  bears  him  up  upon 
its  wings,  as  a  child  in  a  dream,  and  moves  him 
swiftly  through  the  luminous  air,  gazing  at  the 
divinely  colored  pictures  painted  upon  it.  So  was 
Bunyan  borne  upward  as  on  eagles'  wings,  both  by 
the  Spirit  of  God,  and  by  the  power  of  that  natural 
genius,  which  was  the  gift  of  God  ;  and  I  may  add, 
by  the  exciting  celestial  beauty  of  a  subject,  which 
kindles  the  heart  of  the  simplest  Christian  with 
enthusiasm,  and  shapes,  for  the  time  being,  a  poet 
in  the  plainest  mind.  All  this,  without  difficulty, 
you  may  read  under  cover  of  Bunyan's  rude 
rhymes,  which  are  good,  unadulterate  Saxon,  and 


168  BUNYAN    IN    PRISON. 

fall  of  genuine  simplicity  and  humor,  though  he 
scorned  attempting  to  make  them  more  elegant. 

When  at  the  first  I  took  my  pen  in  hand, 
Thus  for  to  write,  I  did  not  understand 
That  I  at  all  should  make  a  little  book 
In  such  a  mode ;  nay,  I  had  undertook 
To  make  another  j  which,  when  almost  done, 
Before  I  was  aware,  I  thus  begun. 

And  thus  it  was  :  I  writing  of  the  way 
And  race  of  saints  in  this  our  gospel-day, 
Fell  suddenly  into  an  allegory, 
About  their  journey,  and  the  way  to  glory, 
In  more  than  twenty  things,  which  I  set  down : 
This  done,  I  twenty  more  had  in  my  crown, 
And  they  again  began  to  multiply, 
Like  sparks  that  from  the  coals  of  fire  do  fly. 
Nay,  then,  thought  I,  if  that  you  breed  so  fast, 
I'll  put  you  by  yourselves,  lest  you  at  last, 
Should  prove  ad  infinitum,  and  eat  out 
The  book  that  I  already  am  about. 

Well,  so  I  did  ;  but  yet  I  did  not  think 
To  show  to  all  the  world  my  pen  and  ink 
In  such  a  mode  ;  I  only  thought  to  make 
I  knew  not  what ;  nor  did  I  undertake 
Thereby  to  please  my  neighbor ;  no,  not  I, 
I  did  it  mine  own  self  to  gratify. 

Neither  did  I  but  vacant  seasons  spend 
In  this  my  scribble ;  nor  did  I  intend 
But  to  divert  myself  in  doing  this, 
From  worser  thoughts,  which  make  me  do  amiss. 

Thus  I  set  pen  to  paper  with  delight, 
And  quickly  had  my  thoughts  in  black  and  white. 
For  having  now  my  method  by  the  end, 
Still  as  I  pull'd  it  came  ;  and  so  I  penn'd 
It  down,  until  at  last  it  came  to  be, 
For  length  and  breadth,  the  bigness  which  you  see. 

Well,  when  I  thus  had  put  my  ends  together, 
I  show'd  them  others,  that  I  might  see  whether 
They  would  condemn  them,  or  them  justify ; 
And  some  said,  Let  him  live ;  some,  Let  him  die : 
Some  said,  John,  print  it ;  others  said,  Not  so. 
Some  said,  It  might  do  good ;  others  said,  No. 

Now  I  was  in  a  strait,  and  did  not  see 
Which  was  the  best  thing  to  be  done  by  me ; 
At  last  I  thought,  since  you  are  thus  divided, 
I  print  it  will ;  and  so  the  case  decided. 

And  how  could  it  have  been  decided  otherwise! 
Bunyan  proceeds  with  an  ingenious  and  amusing 


BUNYAN    IN    PRISON.  169 

apology  and  justification  for  using  similitudes. 
Gold,  pearls,  and  precious  stones  worth  digging 
for,  he  thought  might  fitly  be  put  into  an  allegory  ; 
and  truth,  even  in  swaddling  clothes,  as  a  sweet 
laughing  babe,  might  win  upon  the  mind,  inform 
the  judgment,  make  the  will  submissive,  and  fill  the 
memory  with  things  pleasant  to  the  imagination. 
There  is  refreshing  water  in  dark  clouds,  when 
there  is  none  at  all  in  bright  ones  ;  and  when  their 
silver  drops  descend,  then  the  earth  yieldeth  her 
ripe  harvest.  A  fisherman  goes  patiently  up  and 
down  the  river-side,  and  engages  all  his  wits  to 
catch  a  few  nibbles,  with  snares,  lines,  angles, 
hooks  and  nets ;  all  stratagems  he  uses  for  the 
silly  fish.  So  doth  the  fowler  for  the  birds ;  one 
can  scarce  name  the  variety  of  his  means,  his  gun, 
his  nets,  his  line-twigs,  light  and  bell ;  one  can 
scarce  tell  the  variety  of  his  postures  ;  he  creeps, 
he  goes,  he  stands,  he  pipes  and  whistles.  So  shall 
he,  who  wisely  seeks  to  catch  men,  speak  dia- 
logue-wise, parable-wise,  in  prose  and  poetry,  in 
figures,  metaphors,  and  meaning  fables  ;  in  cunning 
cabinets  and  mantles  he  shall  enclose  truth's  golden 
beams  ;  he  shall  set  his  apples  of  gold  in  pictures 
of  silver. 

Yea,  let  Truth  be  free 
To  make  her  sallies  upon  thee  and  me, 
Which  way  it  pleases  God. 

So  Bunyan  thought,  and  would  not  check  the  vari- 
ty  of  his  fancies,  though  some  would-be  critics 
laughed  at  their  simplicity,  and  some  were  offended 
at  their  novelty.  Yet  he  knew  he  might  write  in 
such  a  method,  and  not  miss  his  end,  which  was 
22 


170  BUNYAN    IN   PRISON. 

the  good  of  his  readers  ;  and  so  he  wrote,  and  so 
he  published,  committing  all  to  God.  The  close 
of  his  preface  is  very  beautiful,  and  would  to  God 
that  every  man  who  reads,  might,  according  to 
Bunyan's  directions,  lay  the  book,  the  head,  and 
the  heart  together,  and  so  follow  the  pilgrim  from 
the  City  of  Destruction  to  the  City  of  Immanuel ! 

This  book  will  make  a  traveller  of  thee, 
If  by  its  counsel  thou  wilt  ruled  be ; 
It  will  direct  thee  to  the  holy  land, 
If  thou  wilt  its  directions  understand  ; 
Yea,  it  will  make  the  slothful  active  be ; 
The  blind  also  delightful  things  to  see. 

Art  thou  for  something  rare  and  profitable  * 
Or  wouldst  thou  see  a  truth  within  a  fable  ? 
Art  thou  forgetful  ?  or  wouldst  thou  remember 
From  new-year's  day  to  the  last  of  December  ? 
Then  read  my  fancies ;  they  will  stick  like  burrs, 
And  may  be  to  the  helpless  comforters. 
This  book  is  wrote  in  such  a  dialect, 
As  may  the  minds  of  listless  men  affect : 
It  seems  a  novelty,  and  yet  contains 
Nothing  but  sound  and  honest  gospel  strains. 

Wouldst  thou  divert  thyself  from  melancholy  ? 
Wouldst  thou  be  pleasant,  yet  be  far  from  folly  ? 
Wouldst  thou  read  riddles,  and  their  explanation  ? 
Or  else  be  drowned  in  thy  contemplation  ? 
Dost  thou  love  picking  meat  ?  or  wouldst  thou  see 
A  man  i'  th'  clouds,  and  hear  him  speak  to  thee  ? 
Wouldst  thou  be  in  a  dream,  and  yet  not  sleep  ? 
Or,  wouldst  thou  in  a  moment  laugh  and  weep  ? 
Or,  wouldst  thou  lose  thyself,  and  catch  no  harm; 
And  find  thyself  again  without  a  charm  ? 
Wouldst  read  thyself,  and  read  thou  know'st  not  what, 
And  yet  know  whether  thou  art  bless'd  or  not, 
By  reading  the  same  lines  ?  O,  then  come  hither ! 
And  lay  my  book,  thy  head  and  heart  together. 

A  great  characteristic  of  original  genius,  perhaps 
its  greatest  proof,  and  one  which  Bunyan  possessed 
in  common  with  Shakspeare,  is  its  spontaneous 
exertion  ;  the  evidence  of  having  written  without 
labor,  and  without  the  consciousness  of  doing  any 
thing  remarkable,  or  the  ambitious  aim  of  perform- 


BUNYAN   IN   PRISON.  171 

ing  a  great  work.  The  thought,  "  How  will  this 
please  ?"  has  little  or  no  power  as  a  motive,  nor  is 
it  suggested  to  such  minds  :  the  greatest  efforts  of 
genius  seem  as  natural  to  it,  as  it  is  for  common 
men  to  breathe.  In  this  view,  Bunyan's  work 
comes  nearer  to  the  inspired  poetry  of  the  Hebrews 
in  its  character,  than  any  other  human  compo- 
sition. He  wrote  from  the  impulse  of  his  ge- 
nius, sanctified  and  illuminated  by  a  heavenly 
influence  ;  and  its  movements  were  as  artless  as 
the  movements  of  a  little  child  left  to  play  upon  the 
green  by  itself;  as  if,  indeed,  he  had  exerted  no 
voluntary  supervision  whatever  over  its  exercise. 
Every  thing  is  as  natural  and  unconstrained,  as  if 
there  had  been  no  other  breather  in  this  world  but 
himself,  no  being,  to  whose  inspection  the  work  he 
was  producing  could  ever  possibly  be  exhibited, 
and  no  rule  or  model,  with  which  it  could  ever  be 
compared. 

We  can  imagine  this  suffering  Christian  and  un- 
conscious Poet  in  the  gloom  of  his  prison,  solacing 
his  mind  with  his  own  visions,  as  they  came  in,  one 
after  another,  like  heavenly  pictures,  to  his  imagina- 
tion. They  were  so  pleasant,  that  he  could  not 
but  give  them  reality,  and  when  he  found  how  they 
accumulated,  the  first  did  the  IDEAL  of  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress  rise  before  his  view.  Then  did  he,  with 
the  pervading,  informing,  and  transfusing  power 
of  genius,  melt  the  materials  and  mould  them  into 
shape.  He  put  the  pictures  into  one  grand  allego- 
ry, with  the  meaning  of  heaven  shining  over  the 
whole,  and  a  separate  interest  and  beauty  in  every 
separate  part.  It  is  an  allegory  conducted  with 


172  BUNYAN    IN   PRISON. 

such  symmetry  and  faithfulness,  that  it  never  tires 
in  its  examination,  but  discloses  continually  new 
meaning  to  the  mind,  and  speaks  to  the  heart  of 
the  Pilgrim  volumes  of  mingled  encouragement, 
warning,  and  instruction. 

And  how  precious  is  the  volume,  which  thus 
stores  the  nursery  as  well  as  the  shelves  of  the  the- 
ologian, with  wholesome  learning ;  which  brings 
the  divinest  mysteries  of  grace  into  the  quick  con- 
science and  soft  heart  of  childhood,  even  before  the 
understanding  is  prepared  to  receive  and  ponder 
their  grave  teachings  !  This  is  the  point  of  Cow- 
per's  beautiful  apostrophe  to  Bunyan. 

0  them,  whom,  borne  on  fancy's  eager  wing, 
Back  to  the  season  of  life's  happy  spring, 

1  pleased  remember,  and  while  memory  yet 
Holds  fast  her  office  here,  can  ne'er  forget ; 
Ingenious  Dreamer !  in  whose  well-told  tale, 
Sweet  fiction  and  sweet  truth  alike  prevail ; 
Whose  humorous  vein,  strong  sense,  and  simple  style, 
May  teach  the  gayest,  make  the  gravest  smile ; 
Witty,  and  well  employed,  and  like  thy  Lord, 
Speaking  in  parables  his  slighted  word ; 

I  name  thee  not,  lest  so  despised  a  name 
Should  move  a  sneer  at  thy  deserved  fame. 
Yet  e'en  in  transitory  life's  late  day, 
That  mingles  all  my  brown  with  sober  gray, 
Revere  the  man,  whose  Pilgrim  marks  the  road 
And  guides  the  Progress  of  the  soul  to  God  ; 
Twere  well  with  most,  if  books  that  could  engage 
Their  childhood,  pleased  them  at  a  riper  age ; 
The  man,  approving  what  had  charmed  the  boy, 
Would  die  at  last  in  comfort,  peace,  and  joy ; 
And  not  with  curses  on  his  heart,  who  stole 
The  gem  of  truth  from  his  unguarded  soul. 


PROVIDENCE,    GRACE, 
AND  GENIUS, 

IN  BUNYAN  AND  THE  PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS. 


Illustrations  of  Divine  Providence  in  selecting  Bunyan  to  write  the  Pilgrim's  Pro- 
gress.— Weak  things  chosen  to  confound  the  mighty. — The  Author  of  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress  selected  not  from  tne  Establishment,  but  from  without  it. — Signal  rebuke 
of  ecclesiastical  exclusiveness  and  hierarchical  pretensions,  in  the  Pilgrim's  Pro- 
gress and  the  Saint's  Rest. — More  of  Bunyan's  Divine  Emblems. — Bunyan's  release 
from  prison. — His  release  from  life,  and  entrance  into  the  Celestial  City. — Dr. 
Scott's  opinion  of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress. — Its  entire  freedom  from  Sectarianism. — 
Its  universality  both  in  genius  and  piety. — Comparison  between  Bunyan's  Pilgrim's 
Progress,  and  Edwards  on  the  Religious  Affections. — Bunyan  and  Spenser. — Sur- 
vey of  the  Events,  Characters,  and  Scenery  in  the  Pilgrim's  Progress. — The  splen- 
dor of  its  conclusion. 

WE  meet  in  the  life  of  Bunyan  some  of  the  most 
remarkable  illustrations  to  be  found  any  where  on 
record,  of  the  manner  in  which  God  hath  chosen 
the  weak  things  of  the  world  to  confound  the 
mighty,  and  base  things  of  the  world,  and  things 
which  are  despised,  and  things  which  are  not,  to 
bring  to  nought  things  that  are  ;  to  abase  the  pride, 
and  rebuke  the  pretensions  of  all  human  glory. 
Bunyan's  preaching,  which  was  the  means  of 
the  conversion  of  so  many  souls,  how  utterly 
despised  and  counted  like  insanity  was  it,  by  all 
the  wise,  the  noble,  the  esteemed  of  this  world  ! 
And  Bunyan's  Allegory,  when  it  first  appeared, 
23 


174  PROVIDENCE,    GRACE    AND    GENIUS, 

with  how  much  contempt  was  it  regarded,  as  a  sort 
of  story  or  ballad  for  the  vulgar,  by  the  lords,  gen- 
tlemen, and  ecclesiastics  of  the  age.  If  any  pro- 
phet in  those  days  could  have  gone  to  the  bishop 
and  justices,  under  whose  jurisdiction  Bunyan  was 
thrust  into  the  common  jail,  and  left  twelve  years 
in  prison,  and  could  have  said,  My  lords,  there  is 
one  John  Bunyan,  formerly  a  tinker,  and  now  a 
tagged  lace-maker  in  a  cell  in  the  prison  of  Bed- 
ford, imprisoned  by  your  lordships  for  preaching 
the  Gospel,  who  hath  composed  and  published  an 
allegory  which  shall  work  more  to  the  accomplish- 
ment of  God's  councils,  and  to  the  establishment 
of  sound  piety  and  morality,  and  to  the  usefulness 
and  glory  of  the  literature  of  this  kingdom,  than 
all  that  your  lordships,  with  all  the  preachers  and 
authors  in  this  civil  and  ecclesiastical  circuit,  shall 
have  accomplished  in  your  whole  life-time ;  he 
would  have  been  regarded  as  void  of  under- 
standing, if  not  imprisoned  for  contempt  of  the 
higher  authorities. 

And  yet,  such  a  prophet  would  have  spoken  but 
the  simple  truth ;  for  into  how  many  languages 
this  book  hath  been  translated,  no  man  can  tell, 
and  how  many  editions  it  has  passed  through,  still 
less  may  any  man  enumerate,  nor  how  many 
souls  it  may  have  guided  to  eternal  glory.  It  has 
gone  almost  wherever  the  Bible  has  gone,  and  has 
left  the  stamp  of  the  best  part  of  English  literature, 
where  neither  Milton  nor  Shakspeare  were  ever 
heard  of.  Indeed,  it  may  doubtless  be  said  of 
Bunyan  as  of  that  woman  of  sacred  memory  in 
the  New  Testament,  Wherever  this  Gospel  shall 


IN  BUNYAN  AND  THE  PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS.     175 

be  preached  in  all  the  world,  there  shall  that, 
which  this  man  hath  done  for  Christ,  be  told  for  a 
memorial  of  him.  The  alabaster-box  of  very  pre- 
cious ointment,  which  that  woman  poured  upon  the 
Savior's  head  was  an  unutterably  precious  offering, 
because  her  heart  went  with  it ;  but  this  alabaster- 
box  of  genius  and  piety,  the  fruit  of  these  twelve 
years'  imprisonment,  wras  the  wrork,  both  the  offer- 
ing itself  and  the  feelings  with  which  it  was  offered, 
equally  of  Bunyan's  heart,  filled  with  love  to  the 
same  Saviour.  And  wherever  the  Bible  goes, 
doubtless,  in  all  time,  this  book  will  follow  it. 

As  the  book  itself  is  an  illustration  of  this  great 
principle  of  God's  administration,  so  was  his  own 
selection  of  Bunyan  as  his  instrument  to  do  so 
mighty  a  work.  Disregarding  the  claims  of  great 
establishments  and  mighty  hierarchies,  passing  by 
the  gorgeous  state  religions  of  the  world  and  all 
their  followers,  passing  the  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, and  the  See  of  London,  and  the  great  con- 
secrated shrines  of  applauded  genius  and  piety, 
even  the  genius  of  Milton,  and  the  pulpits  of 
Jeremy  Taylor,  and  Howe  and  Usher,  and  the 
wise  and  mighty  and  noble  together,  he  entered  the 
prison  cell  in  Bedford,  and  poured  this  unction  of 
his  Spirit  upon  John  Bunyan,  and  touched  his  lips 
alone  with  this  hallowed  fire,  and  dipped  his  pen 
alone  in  these  colors  of  heaven.  There  were  as 
great  boasts,  if  not  of  the  apostolical  succession,  at 
least  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Establishment,  in  those 
days  as  in  this  ;  and  God  saw  that  a  lordly  hier- 
archy, and  many  a  lordly  bishop,  were  proclaiming 
to  all  the  world  this  lie,  that  there  could  be  no 


176      PROVIDENCE,  GRACE,  AND  GENIUS 

lawful  worship  of  God,  arid  no  true  church  of 
Christ,  without  a  prayer  book  and  prelatical  con- 
secration, without  episcopacy,  confirmation,  and  a 
liturgy  ;  but  all  this  was  as  wood,  hay  and  stubble  ; 
and  Divine  Providence  selected,  to  make  the 
brightest  jewel  of  the  age  as  a  Christian,  a  minister, 
and  a  writer,  a  member  of  the  then  obscure,  per- 
secuted, arid  despised  sect  of  Baptists.  He  took 
John  Bunyan  ;  but  he  did  not  remove  him  from  the 
Baptist  church  of  Christ  into  what  men  said  was 
the  only  true  church  ;  he  kept  him  shining  in  that 
Baptist  candlestick  all  his  life-time ;  for  what  is  it 
to  Christ  whether  a  man  be  Baptist,  Methodist, 
Congregationalist,  Presbyterian,  Independent,  or 
Episcopalian,  so  he  be  but  a  true  follower  of  the 
Saviour,  so  he  lord  it  not  over  God's  heritage,  nor 
be  guilty  of  schism  in  consigning  to  God's  un- 
covenanted  mercies,  in  defiance  of  all  Christian 
charity,  those  whom  the  Saviour  holds  as  dear  as 
the  apple  of  his  eye  1  What  are  these  sectarian 
shibboleths  to  Christ,  if  his  people  will  but  walk 
according  to  this  rule,  which  was  a  text  of  favorite 
note  with  Bunyan,  By  this  shall  all  men  know  that 
ye  are  my  disciples,  if  ye  love  one  another  !  MY 
DISCIPLES,  not  members  of  this  or  that  sectarian  per- 
suasion, be  it  Episcopal,  Baptist,  Presbyterian,  or 
what  not.  My  disciples,  not  Church-men,  nor 
Paul's-men,  nor  Rome's  men,  but  MY  DISCIPLES. 

All  gorgeous  and  prelatical  establishments  God 
passed  by,  and  selected  the  greatest  marvel  and 
miracle  of  grace  and  genius  in  all  the  modern  age 
from  the  Baptist  church  in  Bedford^!  If  this  be 
not  a  rebuke  and  a  refutation  of  that  absurd  moc- 


IN  BUNYAN  AND  THE  PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS.    177 

kery,  "  the  apostolical  succession,"  and  all  pre- 
tensions like  it,  we  know  not  how  Divine  Pro- 
vidence could  construct  one.  It  is  just  as  clear  as 
the  Saviour's  own  personal  rebuke  of  the  same 
intolerant  proud  spirit  in  his  day ;  and  the  feeling 
with  which  its  application  is  received  by  the  pre- 
tenders to  the  only  true  church  in  our  day  is  re- 
markably similar.  "  I  tell  you  of  a  truth,  many 
widows  were  in  Israel  in  the  days  of  Elias,  when 
the  heaven  was  shut  up  three  years  and  six  months, 
when  great  famine  was  throughout  all  the  land  ; 
but  unto  none  of  them  was  Elias  sent,  save  unto 
Sarepta,  a  city  of  Sidon,  unto  a  woman  that  was 
a  widow.  And  many  lepers  were  in  Israel  in 
the  time  of  Eliseus  the  prophet,  ;  and  none  of 
them  was  cleansed  saving  Naaman  the  Syrian.  And 
all  they  in  the  synagogue  when  they  heard  these 
things  were  filled  with  wrath,  and  rose  up,  and 
thrust  him  out  of  the  city,  and  led  him  unto  the 
brow  of  the  hill,  whereon  their  city  was  built,  that 
they  might  cast  him  down  headlong  !"  Why,  what 
mighty  evil  hath  our  blessed  Lord  done  to  awaken 
this  dreadful  hell  of  wrath  and  malignity  in  this 
synagogue  of  satan  ?  He  hath  simply  told  them 
that  their  church  was  no  longer  to  be  the  only 
true  church  of  Christ  on  earth,  but  that  he  was 
going  to  preach  to  the  gentiles!  And  the  wick- 
edness of  this  Jewish  hierarchy  is  but  a  specimen 
of  the  wickedness  which  this  pretence  of  being  the 
only  true  church  inevitably  sets  in  motion  and 
brings  with  it,  wherever  such  a  pretended  true 
church  can  get  the  power  to  enforce  its  excom- 
munications. It  will  lead  our  blessed  Lord  him- 


178      PROVIDENCE,  GRACE,  AND  GENIUS 

self  to  the  brow  of  the  hill,  and  cast  him  down 
headlong,  if  he  visit  this  earth  in  a  conventicle, 
if  he  come  to  any  other  than  an  Established 
Church. 

The  same  principle  thus  marvelously  illustrated 
in  the  life  of  Bunyan,  was  that  by  which  God  passed 
by  the  many  thousands  of  Israel  of  loftier  genealo- 
gy and  prouder  claims,  and  fixed  upon  David  the 
son  of  Jesse,  the  keeper  of  his  father's  flock  in  the 
wilderness,  and  anointed  and  crowned  him  King 
of  Israel ;  passed  by  also  the  great  towns  and 
beautiful  cities  of  Judea,  and  Jerusalem  itself,  and 
fixed  upon  Bethlehem  as  the  birth-place  of  our 
Saviour ;  passed  by  also  the  learned  and  excellent, 
the  princes  and  scholars  of  the  land,  when  he 
would  found  a  new  spiritual  kingdom  to  last  for 
ever,  and  took  the  fishermen  and  the  tax-gatherers  ; 
and  to  step  out  of  sacred  history  once  more,  into 
common,  in  a  case  in  some  respects  of  great  simi 
larity  to  Bunyan's  own,  passed  by  the  godliest 
learned  men  of  honor,  title  and  rank,  and  chose  a 
chaplain  in  Oliver  Cromwell's  parliamentary  army 
to  write  the  Saint's  Rest.  The  two  greatest,  most 
important,  most  efficacious  spiritual  works  the  world 
has  ever  seen,  written  by  men  cast  out,  persecuted, 
imprisoned,  as  not  being  members  of  the  true 
church,  as  not  conforming  to  the  will  of  the  Esta- 
blished hierarchy  !  The  world  is  full  of  these 
blessed  instances  of  God's  wisdom  to  cast  down  the 
pride  of  man,  and  abase  his  pretensions,  that  no 
flesh  may  glory  in  his  presence.  And  as  to  these 
hierarchical  arrogancies,  it  would  seem  that  Divine 
Wisdom  itself  could  resort  to  no  expedient  more 


IN   BUNYAN   AND    THE    PILGRIM'S    PROGRESS.    179 

sure  to  put  them  to  shame,  than  when  the  Holy 
Spirit  takes  up  his  abode,  and  displays  his  glory, 
in  beings  cast  out,  persecuted,  imprisoned,  and 
burned,  by  such  bigotry  and  violence.  The  great 
overshadowing,  remorseless,  hierarchical  unity 
of  the  Church,  when  it  is  any  thing  else  but 
unity  in  the  possession  and  exercise  of  the  Spirit 
of  Christ,  becomes  a  destructive  unity  of  evil,  a 
unity  of  ambition,  consecrated  under  the  name  of 
religion,  a  unity  of  earthly  power  and  aggrandize- 
ment, in  which  the  passion  of  universal  conquest, 
that  like  a  chariot  of  fire  whirled  a  Nimrod  or  Na- 
poleon over  the  world,  kindles  in  the  bosom  of 
church-men,  and  makes  out  of  the  church  itself 
the  most  perfect,  awful  form  of  despotism.  It  is 
such  a  dreadful  unity,  that  has  anathematised  and 
destroyed  some  of  the  brightest  temples  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  out  of  which  God  has  shined  in  this  world 
of  darkness.  It  was  indeed  this  remorseless,  des- 
potic, persecuting  unity,  to  which  our  blessed  Lord 
himself  was  sacrificed,  to  prevent  a  schism  in  the 
Jewish  hierarchy.  But  under  whatever  form, 
save  that  of  love  to  Christ,  and  participation  in  his 
spirit,  this  unity  is  vaunted,  it  becomes  an  unhal- 
lowed, worldly,  vain,  ambitious  boast ;  and  power- 
fully, indeed,  are  its  pretensions  shown  to  be  vanity, 
when  God  raises  up,  beyond  its  precincts,  such  men 
as  Baxter  and  Bunyan,  Owen  and  Doddridge,  Ca- 
lamy  and  Howe,  Brainard  and  Edwards,  Payson 
and  Dwight.  Rather  let  every  Christian  be  in  him- 
self a  separate  sect,  than  the  church  of  Christ  a 
compulsory  despotism. 
•And  how  may  we  suppose  the  great  Head  of 


180      PROVIDENCE,  GRACE,  AND  GENIUS 

the  church  regards  such  daring  presumption,  whe- 
ther under  pretence  of  apostolical  succession  or 
prelatical  consecration,  that  shuts  out  such  men 
from  the  church  of  Christ  on  earth,  and  gives  them 
over  even  to  God's  uncovenanted  mercies  in  Hea- 
ven I  Merely  the  statement  of  such  pretensions  is 
enough  to  show  how  opposed  they  are  to  the  spirit 
of  the  gospel.  If  a  desire  to  spread  that  gospel, 
and  to  bring  all  men  into  the  fold  of  Christ  had 
prevailed,  or  were  now  prevalent,  we  should  hear 
nothing  of  such  pretensions  ;  if  that  unity  of  love 
existed,  which  our  blessed  Lord  requires,  arid 
without  which  all  other  unity  is  worthless,  there 
would  be  the  kindest  charity  and  piety,  but  no  pride  ; 
Christians  would,  as  Paul  requires,  receive  one 
another,  but  not  to  doubtful  disputations ;  and  all 
sects  would  be  found  vying  with  each  other,  not  to 
spread  their  own  name,  but  the  knowledge  of  the 
gospel ;  not  to  eject  each  other  from  the  missionary 
field,  but  to  fill  the  world  with  love  and  mercy.  We 
trust  in  God  that  this  spirit  shall  prevail  over  every 
other,  and  when  it  does,  then  will  be  the  time,  when 
there  shall  be  nothing  to  hurt  nor  destroy  in  all 
God's  holy  mountain. 

The  prison  hours  of  such  men  as  Bunyan  have 
done  much  to  bring  the  full  blessedness  of  such  a  pe- 
riod, and  out  of  Bunyan's  prison  shone  much  of  that 
rosy  light,  that  in  the  morning  of  the  Reformation  is 
more  romantically  beautiful,  than  even  the  clear 
shining  of  the  sun  at  noon.  His  prison  work  was 
one  of  the  stars,  co-herald  with  the  dawn,  reflecting 
the  Sun  of  Righteousness,  but  struggling  with  the 
darkness  all  night  long.  If,  during  his  confinement, 


IN  BUNYAN  AND  THE  PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS.    181 

he  wrote  those  Divine  Emblems,  of  which  I  have 
spoken,  as  is  very  probable,  there  was  calm,  sweet 
light,  shining  out  of  the  soul  of  the  true  poet, 
hidden,  as  by  God's  mercy,  in  a  pavilion  from 
the  strife  of  tongues.  As  the  tuneful  bird  of 
night  sits  even  amidst  the  rain,  and  sings  darkling, 
so  the  heart  of  Bunyan  sang,  while  the  storm  raged 
round  his  prison ;  nay,  it  may  be  said  of  him,  as 
of  Luther,  that  he  poured  the  music  of  truth  from 
his  soul  as  from  a  church  organ.  I  could  pre- 
sent some  of  his  finished  pieces  in  verse,  that 
may  well  be  compared  with  the  best  of  our  elder 
poets,  and  that,  contrasted  with  the  doggrel  of  his 
early  days,  show  an  intellectual  transformation  as 
wonderful,  almost,  as  his  spiritual  new  creation. 
And  yet,  I  must  remark,  in  regard  to  those  rude 
verses,  which,  with  such  inconceivably  bad  spelling, 
and  with  such  cramped  and  distorted  chirography, 
Bunyan  used  to  write  in  the  margin  of  his  old  copy 
of  Fox's  Book  of  Martyrs,  that  they  do  not  make 
upon  the  mind  the  impression  of  that  word  doggrel ; 
the  mint  out  of  which  they  fall  is  too  sacred  for 
that,  and  the  metal,  though  wrought  with  such  ex- 
treme rudeness,  manifestly  too  precious.  As  we 
gaze  upon  that  chirography,  in  connection  with 
the  martyrdom  that  excited  the  passionate  emotion 
of  the  writer,  we  seem  to  see  the  very  soul  of  Bunyan 
impressing,  as  with  the  point  of  a  diamond,  in  the 
only  language  he  then  knew  how  to  command,  the 
hieroglyphics  of  the  martyr's  spirit  in  his  own 
bosom.  Those  verses  are  as  Indian  arrows,  tipped 
with  flint,  in  comparison  with  a  rifle  inlaid  with 

24 


182      PROVIDENCE,  GRACE,  AND  GENIUS 

gold  ;   but   they  are  more  than  curious ;    there  is 
vigor  in  them,  and  fire  of  the  soul. 

If  the  following  emblems  (in  addition  to  those 
I  have  before  referred  to)  be  taken  as  specimens 
of  what  fancies  the  poet  could  play  with  for  the 
prisoner's  amusement,  there  is  no  good  critic  but 
will  recognize  in  them  the  elements  of  a  true 
poetical  genius.  Who,  for  example,  in  Bunyan's 
stanzas  upon  the  sun's  reflection  on  the  clouds  in 
a  fair  morning,  will  not  irresistibly  be  reminded 
of  Milton's  beautiful  image  in  the  Mask  of  Comus? 

Was  I  deceived,  or  did  a  sable  cloud 
Turn  forth  her  silver  lining  on  the  night 

Bunyan,  certainly,  never  imitated  any  living 
creature,  nor  the  writings  of  any  genius,  living 
or  dead ;  yet  there  are  passages,  that,  with  the 
exception  of  the  recurrence  of  "  grace"  or  similar 
religious  phrases,  formed  in  a  very  different  school 
from  that  of  the  poets  of  this  world,  might  be 
deemed  to  have  been  cut  directly  from  the  pages 
even  of  such  a  writer  as  Shakspeare.  Juliet, 
looking  from  her  window,  might  have  uttered  the 
following  lines,  had  her  thoughts  been  upon  such 
sacred  things  as  the  prayer  of  the  saints. 

Look  yonder !  ah,  methinks  mine  eyes  do  see 
Clouds  edged  with  silver,  as  fine  garments  be ! 
They  look  as  if  they  saw  the  golden  face, 
That  makes  black  clouds  most  beautiful  with  grace. 

Unto  the  saints'  sweet  incense  of  their  prayer 
These  smoky  curled  clouds  I  do  compare ; 
For  as  these  clouds  seem  edged  or  laced  with  gold, 
Their  prayers  return  with  blessings  manifold. 


IN  BUNYAN  AND   THE  PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS.    183 

Remark  also  the  beauty  of  the  following  lines  upon 
the  rising  of  the  sun  : 

Look  how  brave  Sol  doth  peep  up  from  beneath, 
Shows  us  his  golden  face,  doth  on  us  breathe  ; 
Yea,  he  doth  compass  us  around  with  glories 
Whilst  he  ascends  up  to  his  highest  stories, 
Where  he  his  banner  over  us  displays, 
And  gives  us  light  to  see  our  works  and  ways. 

Nor  are  we  now  as  at  the  peep  of  light, 
To  question  is  it  day,  or  is  it  night ; 
The  night  is  gone,  the  shadow's  fled  away, 
And  now  we  are  most  certain  that  'tis  day. 

And  thus  it  is  when  Jesus  shows  his  face, 
And  doth  assure  us  of  his  love  and  grace. 

Take  also  the  following  very  beautiful  moral  upon 
the  promising  fruitfulness  of  a  tree.  Who  could 
have  written  in  purer  language,  or  with  more  terse- 
ness and  graphic  simplicity  ? 

A  comely  sight  indeed  it  is  to  see, 
A  world  of  blossoms  on  an  apple-tree : 
Yet  far  more  comely  would  this  tree  appear, 
If  all  its  dainty  blooms  young  apples  were ; 
But  how  much  more  might  one  upon  it  see, 
If  each  would  hang  there  till  it  ripe  should  be. 
But  most  of  all  in  beauty,  'twould  abound, 
If  every  one  should  then  be  truly  sound. 

But  we  alas !  do  commonly  behold 
Blooms  fall  apace,  if  mornings  be  but  cold. 
They  too  which  hang  till  they  young  apples  are, 
By  blasting  winds  and  vermin  take  despair. 
Store  that  do  hang  while  almost  ripe,  we  see, 
By  blust'ring  winds  are  shaken  from  the  tree. 

So  that  of  many,  only  some  there  be, 
That  grow  and  thrive  to  full  maturity. 

COMPARISON. 

This  tree  a  perfect  emblem  is  of  those 
Which  do  the  garden  of  the  Lord  compose. 

Its  blasted  blooms  are  motions  unto  good, 
Which  chill  affections  nip  in  the  soft  bud. 


184      PROVIDENCE,  GRACE,  AND  GENIUS 

Those  little  apples  which  yet  blasted  are, 
Show  some  good  purposes,  no  good  fruit  bear. 
Those  spoil'd  by  vermin  are  to  let  us  see 
How  good  attempts  by  bad  thoughts  min'd  be. 

Those  which  the  wind  blows  down  while  they  are  green, 
Show  good  works  have  by  trials  spoiled  been. 
Those  that  abide  while  ripe,  upon  the  tree, 
Show,  in  a  good  man,  some  ripe  fruit  will  be. 

Behold  then  how  abortive  some  fruits  are, 
Which  at  the  first  most  promising  appear. 
The  frost,  the  wind,  the  worm,  with  time  doth  show, 
There  flow  from  much  appearance  works  but  few. 

I  may  add  to  these  extracts  the  following 
emblem  upon  a  snail,  very  much  in  the  manner  of 
our  elder  poets,  and  with  an  exquisite  religious 
moral,  which  you  might  look  far  to  discover  in 
English  poetry,  and  not  find  at  all,  or  not  find  so 
simply  and  so  well  expressed. 

She  goes  but  softly,  but  she  goeth  sure, 
She  stumbles  not,  as  stronger  creatures  do ; 

Her  journey's  shorter,  so  she  may  endure 
Better  than  they  which  do  much  further  go. 

She  makes  no  noise,  but  stilly  seize th  on 
The  flow'r  or  herb,  appointed  for  her  food ; 

The  which  she  quietly  doth  feed  upon, 
While  others  range  and  glare,  but  find  no  good. 

And  tho'  she  doth  but  very  softly  go, 

However  slow  her  pace  be,  yet  'tis  sure : 
And  certainly  they  that  do  travel  so, 

The  prize  which  they  do  aim  at,  they  procure. 

Altho'  they  seem  not  much  to  stir  or  go, 
Who  thirst  for  Christ,  and  who  from  wrath  do  flee, 

Yet  what  they  seek  for,  quickly  they  come  to, 
Tho'  it  does  seem  the  farthest  off  to  be. 

One  act  of  faith  doth  bring  them  to  that  flow'r 
They  so  long  for  that  they  .may  eat  and  live, 

Which  to  attain  is  not  in  others'  power, 

Tho'  for  it  a  king's  ransom  they  would  give. 

Then  let  none  faint,  nor  be  at  all  dismay'd, 
That  life  by  Christ  do  seek,  they  shall  not  foil 


IN  BUNYAN  AND  THE  PILGRIRl's  PROGRESS.    185 

To  have  it ;  let  them  nothing  be  afraid : 
The  herb  and  flow'r  are  eaten  by  the  snail. 

In  the  collection  of  Bunyan's  poetical  pieces  in 
his  works  there  are  some  very  thoughtful  and 
vigorous  stanzas,  entitled,  A  Caution  to  Stir  up  to 
Watch  against  Sin.  They  may  very  probably  be 
ranked  along  with  the  Divine  Emblems,  as  the 
production  of  his  prison  hours.  The  following 
lines  are  powerful. 

Sin  is  the  living  worm,  the  lasting  fire ; 

Hell  soon  would  lose  its  heat,  could  sin  expire. 

Better  sinless  in  hell,  than  to  be  where 

Heaven  is,  and  to  be  found  a  sinner  there. 

One  sinless  with  infernals  might  do  well, 

But  sin  would  make  of  heaven  a  very  hell. 
Look  to  thyself  then,  keep  it  out  of  door, 
Lest  it  get  in  and  never  leave  thee  more. 

No  match  has  sin  but  God  in  all  the  world, 
Men,  angels,  has  it  from  their  station  hurled ; 
Holds  them  in  chains,  as  captives,  in  despite 
Of  all  that  here  below  is  called  might. 
Release,  help,  freedom  from  it  none  can  give, 
But  even  he,  by  whom  we  breathe  and  live. 
Watch,  therefore,  keep  this  giant  out  of  door, 
Lest,  if  once  in,  thou  get  him  out  no  more. 

Fools  make  a  mock  at  sin,  will  not  believe 
It  carries  such  a  dagger  in  its  sleeve ; 
How  can  it  be,  say  they,  that  such  a  thing, 
So  full  of  sweetness,  e'er  should  wear  a  sting  ? 
They  know  not  that  it  is  the  very  spell 
Of  sin,  to  make  men  laugh  themselves  to  hell. 
Look  to  thyself  then,  deal  with  sin  no  more, 
Lest  he  that  saves,  against  thee  shuts  the  door. 

In  the  prose  works  of  Bunyan  there  are  here  and 
there  passages,  which,  had  he  put  them  into  rhyme, 
would  have  made  exquisite  poems.  Such,  for 
example,  is  the  following  paragraph,  which  one 
might  suppose  to  have  been  cut  from  the  pages 
of  the  holy  Leighton,  so  much  do  the  spirit,  the 


186       PROVIDENCE,  GRACE  AND  GENIUS 

language,  and  the  imagery  resemble  his.  "  I  have 
thus  written,"  says  Bunyan,  speaking  of  his  work 
on  Christian  Behaviour,  "  because  it  is  amiable 
arid  pleasant  to  God,  when  Christians  keep  their 
rank,  relation,  and  station,  doing  all  as  becomes 
their  quality  and  calling.  When  Christians  stand 
every  one  in  their  places,  and  do  the  work  of  their 
relations,  then  they  are  like  the  flowers  in  the 
garden,  that  stand  and  grow  where  the  gardener 
hath  planted  them,  and  then  they  shall  both  honor 
the  garden  in  which  they  are  planted,  and  the 
gardener  that  hath  so  disposed  of  them.  From 
the  hyssop  in  the  wall  to  the  cedar  in  Lebanon, 
their  fruit  is  their  glory.  And  seeing  the  stock 
into  which  we  are  planted  is  the  fruitfulest  stock, 
the  sap  conveyed  thereout  the  fruitfulest  sap, 
and  the  dresser  of  our  souls  the  wisest  hus- 
bandman, how  contrary  to  nature,  to  example,  and 
expectation  we  should  be,  if  we  should  not  be  rich 
in  good  works.  Wherefore,  take  heed  of  being 
painted  fire,  wherein  is  no  warmth  ;  and  painted 
flowers,  which  retain  no  smell,  and  of  being  painted 
trees,  whereon  is  no  fruit.  Whoso  boasteth  himself 
of  a  false  gift,  is  like  clouds  and  wind  without  rain. 
Farewell !  The  Lord  be  with  thy  spirit,  that  thou 
mayest  profit  for  time  to  come." 

In  the  same  work  on  Christian  Behaviour  he 
says  beautifully,  "  It  is  the  ordinance  of  God  that 
Christians  should  be  often  asserting  the  things  of 
God  each  to  others,  and  that  by  their  so  doing  they 
should  edify  one  another.  The  doctrine  of  the  gos- 
pel is  like  the  dew  and  the  small  rain,  that  distilleth 
upon  the  tender  grass,  wherewith  it  doth  flourish, 


IN  BUNYAN  AND  THE  PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS.    187 

and  is  kept  green.  Christians  are  like  the  several 
flowers  in  a  garden,  that  have  upon  each  of  them 
the  dew  of  heaven,  which  being  shaken  by  the 
wind,  they  let  fall  their  dew  at  each  other's  roots, 
whereby  they  are  jointly  nourished,  and  become 
nourishers  of  one  another.  For  Christians  to  com- 
mune savorily  of  God's  matters  one  with  another  is 
as  if  they  opened  to  each  other's  nostrils  boxes  of 
perfume.  Saith  Paul  to  the  church  at  Rome,  I  long 
to  see  you,  that  I  may  impart  unto  you  some  spi- 
ritual gift,  to  the  end  that  you  may  be  established  ; 
that  is,  that  I  may  be  comforted  together  with  you, 
by  the  mutual  faith  both  of  you  and  me." 

"  Thus  have  I,  in  few  words,  written  to  you 
before  I  die,  a  word  to  provoke  you  to  faith  and  ho- 
liness, because  I  desire  that  you  may  have  the  life 
that  is  laid  up  for  all  them  that  believe  in  the  Lord 
Jesus,  and  love  one  another,  when  I  am  deceased. 
Though  there  I  shall  rest  from  my  labors,  and  be 
in  Paradise,  as  through  grace  I  comfortably  be- 
lieve, but  it  is  not  there,  but  here,  I  must  do  you 
good.  Wherefore  I,  not  knowing  the  shortness  of 
my  life,  nor  the  hinderance  that  hereafter  I  may 
have  of  serving  my  God  and  you,  I  have  taken  this 
opportunity  to  present  these  few  lines  unto  you  for 
your  edification.  Consider  what  hath  been  said, 
and  the  Lord  give  you  understanding  in  all  things. 
Farewell!" 

How  beautiful  is  the  spirit  here  manifested,  how 
full  of  the  sweet  charity  of  the  gospel,  and  of 
what  sweet  simplicity  and  beauty  are  the  thoughts 
and  images  here  expressed !  It  is  not  there  in  heaven, 
but  here  on  earth,  that  I  must  do  you  good.  We  are 


188      PROVIDENCE,  GRACE,  AND  GENIUS 

reminded  of  Paul's  language,  To  abide  in  the  flesh 
is  more  needful  for  you.  Infinitely  desirable  is 
such  a  blessed  hope  of  heaven,  as  shall  make  the 
Christian  desire  to  depart  and  be  with  Christ,  and 
shall,  at  the  same  time,  quicken  and  animate  and 
fill  with  blessedness  all  his  efforts  for  the  good  of 
others. 

In  that  ingenious  work  of  Bunyan,  entitled, 
"  Solomon's  Temple  Spiritualized,"  there  are  pas- 
sages of  exquisite  beauty  and  significancy.  Take, 
for  example,  the  two  following  extracts,  the  first  in 
regard  to  the  Gates  of  the  Porch  of  the  Temple, 
the  second  in  regard  to  the  Pinnacles  of  the  Tem- 
ple ;  and  see  the  ingenuity  and  beauty  of  the  au- 
thor of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress,  in  other  modes  of 
allegorizing  besides  that  of  the  great  admired  pro- 
duction of  his  genius. 

Of  the  Gates  of  the  Porch  of  the  Temple. 

The  porch,  at  which  was  an  ascent  to  the  temple,  had  a  gate 
belonging  to  it.  This  gate,  according  to  the  prophet  Ezekiel,  was 
six  cubits  wide.  The  leaves  of  this  gate  were  double,  one  folding 
this  way,  the  other  folding  that.  Ezek.  xl.  48. 

Now  here  some  may  object,  and  say,  Since  the  way  to  God  by 
these  doors  were  so  wide,  why  doth  Christ  say,  the  way  and  gate 
is  narrow  ? 

Ans.  The  straitness,  the  narrowness,  must  not  be  understood  of 
the  gate  simply,  but  because  of  that  cumber  that  some  men  carry 
with  them,  that  pretend  to  be  going  to  heaven.  Six  cubits  !  What 
is  sixteen  cubits  to  him  who  would  enter  in  here  with  all  the  world 
on  his  back  ?  The  young  man  in  the  Gospel,  who  made  such  a 
noise  for  heaven,  might  have  gone  in  easy  enough ;  for  in  six  cu- 
bits breadth  there  is  room  :  but,  poor  man !  he  was  not  for  going  in 
thither,  unless  he  might  carry  in  his  houses  upon  his  shoulder  too, 
and  so  the  gate  was  strait.  Mark  x.  17-23. 


IN    BUNYAN  AND   THE    PILGRIM'S    PROGESS.    189 

Wherefore  he  that  will  enter  in  at  the  gate  of  heaven,  of  which 
this  gate  into  the  temple  was  a  type,  must  go  in  by  himself,  and 
not  with  his  bundles  of  trash  on  his  back  ;  and  if  he  will  go  in 
thus,  he  need  not  fear  there  is  room.  The  righteous  nation  that 
keepeth  the  truth,  they  shall  enter  in. 

They  that  enter  at  the  gate  of  the  inner  court,  must  be  clothed 
in  fine  linen ;  how  then  shall  they  go  into  the  temple  that  carry  the 
clogs  of  the  dirt  of  this  world  at  their  heels  ?  Thus  saith  the  Lord, 
"  No  stranger  uncircumcised  in  heart,  or  uncircumcised  in  flesh 
shall  enter  into  my  sanctuary." 

The  wideness  therefore  of  this  gate,  is  for  this  cause  here  made 
mention  of,  to  wit,  to  encourage  them  that  would  gladly  enter 
thereat,  according  to  the  mind  of  God,  and  not  to  flatter  them  that 
are  not  for  leaving  of  all  for  God. 

Wherefore  let  such  as  would  go  in  remember  that  here  is 
room,  even  a  gate  to  enter  at,  six  cubits  wide.  We  have  been 
all  this  while  but  on  the  outside  of  the  temple,  even  in  the  courts 
of  the  house  of  the  Lord,  to  see  the  beauty  and  glory  that  is  there. 
The  beauty  hereof  made  men  cry  out,  and  say,  "  How  amiable  are 
thy  tabernacles,  O  Lord  bf  hosts  !  my  soul  longeth,  yea,  fainteth 
for  the  courts  of  the  Lord  ;"  and  to  say,  "  A  day  in  thy  courts  is 
better  than  a  thousand." 

Of  the  Pinnacles  of  the  lemple. 

There  was  also  several  pinnacles  belonging  to  the  temple. 
These  pinnacles  stood  on  the  top  aloft  in  the  air,  and  were  sharp, 
and  so  difficult  to  stand  upon  :  what  men  say  of  their  number  and 
length,  I  waive,  and  come  directly  to  their  signification. 

I  therefore  take  those  pinnacles  to  be  types  of  those  lofty,  airy 
notions,  with  which  some  delight  themselves,  while  they  hover  like 
birds  above  the  solid  and  godly  truths  of  Christ.  Satan  attempted 
to  entertain  Christ  Jesus  with  this  type,  and  antitype,  at  once,  when 
he  set  him  on  one  of  the  pinnacles  of  the  temple,  and  offered  to 
thrust  him  upon  a  false  confidence  in  God,  by  a  false  and  unsound 
interpretation  of  a  text.  Matt.  iv.  5,  6.  Luke  iv.  9, 10,  11. 

You  have  some  men,  cannot  be  content  to  worship  in  the  tem- 
ple, but  must  be  aloft ;  no  place  will  serve  them  but  pinnacles, 
pinnacles  ;  that  they  may  be  speaking  in  and  to  the  air,  that  they 
may  be  promoting  their  heady  notions,  instead  of  solid  truth ;  not 

25 


190      PROVIDENCE,  GRACE,  AND  GENIUS 

considering  that  now  they  are  where  the  devil  would  have  them 
be :  they  strut  upon  their  points,  their  pinnacles :  but  let  them  look 
to  it,  there  is  difficult  standing  upon  pinnacles  ;  their  neck,  their 
soul,  is  in  danger.  We  read,  God  is  in  his  temple,  not  upon  these 
pinnacles.  Psa.  xi.  4.  Hab.  ii.  20. 

It  is  true,  Christ  was  once  upon  one  of  these  :  but  the  devil  set 
him  there,  with  intent  to  dash  him  in  pieces  by  a  fall ;  and  yet 
even  then  told  him,  if  he  would  venture  to  tumble  down,  he  should 
be  kept  from  dashing  his  foot  against  a  stone.  To  be  there,  there- 
fore, was  one  of  Christ's  temptations  ;  consequently  one  of  Satan's 
stratagems  ;  nor  went  he  thither  of  his  own  accord,  for  he  knew 
that  there  was  danger  ;  he  loved  not  to  clamber  pinnacles. 

This  should  teach  Christians  to  be  low  and  little  in  their  own 
eyes,  and  to  forbear  to  intrude  into  airy  and  vain  speculations,  and 
to  take  heed  of  being  puffed  up  with  a  foul  and  empty  mind. 

In  the  same  work,  Bunyan  says  in  regard  to  the 
ornaments  carved  upon  the  doors  of  the  temple, 

There  were  also  carved  upon  these  doors  open  flowers  ;  and  that 
to  teach  us,  that  here  is  the  sweet  scent,  and  fragrant  smell ;  and 
that  the  coming  soul  will  find  it  so  in  Christ  this  door  :  lam,  saith 
he,  the  rose  of  Sharon,  and  the  lily  of  the  vallies.  And  again,  His 
cheeks  are  as  beds  of  spices  and  several  flowers,  his  lips  like  lilies 
drop  sweet  smelling  myrrh. 

Open  flowers.  Open  flowers  are  the  sweetest,  because  full 
grown,  and  because,  as  such,  they  yield  their  fragrancy  most 
freely.  Wherefore,  when  he  saith,  upon  the  doors  are  open  flow- 
ers, he  setteth  Christ  Jesus  forth  in  his  good  savors  as  high  as  by 
such  similitudes  he  could  ;  and  that  both  in  name  and  office  ;  for 
open  flowers  lay,  by  their  thus  opening  themselves  before  us,  all 
their  beauty  also  most  plainly  before  our  faces.  There  are  varie- 
ties of  beauty  in  open  flowers,  the  which  they  also  commend  to  all 
observers.  Now  upon  these  doors,  you  see,  are  open  flowers, 
flowers  ripe,  and  spread  before  us  to  show  that  his  name  and  offices 
are  savory  to  them  that  by  him  do  enter  his  house  to  God  his 
Father.  Song  i.  1,  2,  3,  4. 

All  these  were  overlaid  with  fine  gold.  Gold  is  most  rich  of  all 
metals ;  and  here  it  is  said  the  doors,  the  cherubims,  the  palm 
trees,  and  open  flowers,  were  overlaid  therewith.  And  this  shows, 


IN  BUNYAN  AND  THE  PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS.     191 

that  as  these  things  are  rich  in  themselves,  even  so  they  should  be 
to  us.  We  have  a  golden  door  to  go  to  God  by,  and  golden  angels 
to  conduct  us  through  the  world  :  we  have  golden  palm  trees,  as 
tokens  of  our  victory,  and  golden  flowers  to  smell  on  all  the  way 
to  heaven. 

A  man  who,  with  the  Bible  and  his  Concordance 
for  his  only  library,  could  write,  and  loved  to  write, 
in  this  manner,  need  be  in  no  want  of  occupation  or 
of  solace  in  his  prison  hours.  They  fled  swiftly 
and  sweetly  with  Bunyan,  notwithstanding  all  his 
cares,  and  never,  since  the  beginning  of  the  world, 
were  twelve  prison  years  made  to  yield  a  riper,  more 
blessed  harvest  for  his  own  soul's  happiness  and 
the  world's  good.  Of  them,  as  well  as  of  his 
temptations,  Bunyan  could  say,  I  have  found  a 
nest  of  honey  in  the  carcass  of  the  lion  that  roared 
upon  me.  Not  only  himself,  but  all  the  world,  are 
refreshed  by  its  sweetness,  and  healed  by  it,  as  by  a 
spiritual  medicinal  Nepenthe,  in  the  midst  of  guilt 
and  wretchedness.  So,  out  of  darkness  God  can 
bring  forth  light,  out  of  evil  good,  out  of  the  ad- 
versities of  his  people,  the  most  precious  of  all  manna 
for  the  nourishment  of  his  church  in  the  wilderness. 

Bunyan's  release  from  prison  took  place  in  the 
year  1672,  or  early  in  1673 ;  befriended,  ac- 
cording to  Bunyan's  own  grateful  acknowledg- 
ments, by  Dr.  Barlow,  afterwards  Bishop  of  Lin- 
coln. His  liberation  is  now  said  to  have  been 
obtained  from  Charles  II.,  by  Whitehead  the 
Quaker.  For  two  or  three  years  the  strictness  of 
his  imprisonment  had  been  loosened,  so  that,  pro- 
bably through  the  kindness  of  his  jailor,  he  used  to 
meet  with  his  church  in  Bedford,  if  not  to  preach 


192      PROVIDENCE,  GRACE,  AND  GENIUS 

to  them.  Indeed,  it  was  even  before  his  release 
from  prison  that  he  was  chosen  by  that  church,  and 
ordained  their  pastor,  in  the  year  1671,  and  that 
notwithstanding  the  revival  and  re-enactment  of  the 
barbarous  conventicle  act  in  1670.  This  act  was 
the  means  of  a  severe  persecution  of  the  members 
of  Bunyan's  church,  from  which  he  himself  escaped, 
only  because  he  was  already  a  prisoner,  as  he 
had  been  for  near  twelve  years.  In  this  there  was 
at  least  a  verification  of  Bunyan's  own  poetry  in 
the  Pilgrim's  Progress : 

He  that  is  down  needs  fear  no  fall. 

How  he  escaped  afterwards,  or  how,  without  the 
slightest  relinquishments  of  his  principles,  he  should 
have  been  let  out  of  prison,  is  almost  inexplicable ; 
only  it  was  the  good  providence  of  God.  He  was 
thrown  into  prison  as  a  preacher,  and  as  a  preacher 
he  came  out,  in  the  full  spirit  of  his  first  declara- 
tion, that  if  he  were  out  of  prison  to-day,  he  would 
preach  the  gospel  to-morrow,  hy  the  help  of  God. 

He  continued  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  writing, 
preaching,  visiting,  in  Bedford  and  the  region 
round  about,  often  visiting  London,  and  preaching 
there  ;  preaching  with  such  divine  unction  and 
power,  that  Owen,  who  heard  him,  made  answer  to 
Charles  II.,  when  the  king  ridiculed  him  for  hear- 
ing an  illiterate  tinker  prate,  "  Please  your  ma- 
jesty, could  I  possess  that  tinker's  abilities  for 
preaching,  I  would  most  gladly  relinquish  all  my 
learning."  With  all  the  great  learning  of  Owen,  it 
would  have  been  a  good  exchange,  and  the  speech 
was  in  the  highest  degree  creditable  to  that  great 


IN  BUNYAN  AND  THE  PILGRIM'S    PROGRESS.    193 

and  good  man,  and  an  admirable  reproof  to  the 
king ;  for  Bunyan's  preaching  was  in  demonstra- 
tion of  the  Spirit,  and  with  power  ;  and  his  own 
account  of  his  own  exercises  in  preaching,  with  the 
wrestling  and  yearning  of  his  soul  for  the  con- 
version of  men,  shows  something  of  the  deep  secret 
of  that  power.  He  preached  in  prison  as  well  as 
out  of  it ;  and  one  of  his  biographers,  who  visited 
him  while  there,  just  after  the  prison  was  crowded 
with  more  than  three  score  dissenters  newly  taken, 
relates,  "  that  in  the  midst  of  all  that  hurry,  which 
so  many  new  cpmers  occasioned,  he  had  heard 
Mr.  Bunyan  both  preach  and  pray  with  that  mighty 
spirit  of  faith,  and  plethory  of  divine  assistance, 
that  had  made  him  stand  and  wonder."  That  is  a 
graphic  expression,  that  plethory  of  divine  as- 
sistance. 

Bunyan  is  said  to  have  clearly  foreseen  the 
designs  of  King  James  in  favor  of  popery,  and 
"  advised  the  brethren  to  avail  themselves  of  the 
sunshine  by  diligent  endeavors  to  spread  the 
gospel,  and  to  prepare  for  an  approaching  storm  by 
fasting  and  prayer."  For  himself,  he  was  always 
ready,  but  always  laboring  after  a  greater  readiness. 
It  was  in  the  successful  prosecution  of  a  labor  of 
love  and  charity  that  he  died  ;  having  travelled  to 
Reading  to  make  peace  between  an  alienated  son 
and  father.  The  gentle  spirit  of  Bunyan  prevailed 
to  do  away  the  alienation  ;  but  for  himself  return- 
ing to  London  on  horseback  through  the  rain,  he 
fell  sick  with  a  mortal  fever,  and  died  at  the  age  of 
60,  on  the  31st  day  of  August,  1688.  On  his 
dying  bed,  he  acted  the  part  of  Hopeful,  in  crossing 


194      PROVIDENCE,  GRACE,  AND  GENIUS 

the  River  of  Death,  for  the  Saviour  was  with  him, 
and  the  songs  of  the  Celestial  City  were  ravishing 
his  heart.  The  most  ancient  biography  of  Bunya:* 
declares,  that  "He  comforted  those  that  wept 
about  him,  exhorting  them  to  trust  in  God,  and 
pray  to  him  for  mercy  and  forgiveness  of  their 
sins,  telling  them  what  a  glorious  exchange  it  would 
be,  to  leave  their  troubles  and  cares  of  a  wretched 
mortality,  to  live  with  Christ  forever,  with  peace 
and  joy  inexpressible  ;  expounding  to  them  the 
comfortable  scriptures  by  which  they  were  to 
hope  and  assuredly  come  unto  a  blessed  resur- 
rection in  the  last  day.  He  desired  some  to  pray 
with  him,  and  he  joined  with  them  in  prayer  :  and 
his  last  words,  after  he  had  struggled  with  a  lan- 
guishing disease,  were  these,  Weep  not  for  me,  but 
for  yourselves.  I  go  to  the  Father  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  who  will,  through  the  mediation  of  his 
blessed  Son,  receive  me,  though  a  sinner,  where  I 
hope  we  ere  long  shall  meet  to  sing  the  new  song, 
and  remain  everlastingly  happy,  world  without 
end." 

So  holy  and  blessed  was  the  life,  so  happy  was 
the  death,  but  indescribably,  inconceivably  glo- 
rious the  immortality  of  John  Buriyan.  Farther 
the  pen  traces  him  not,  but  the  eye  of  faith  fol- 
lows him,  and  beholds  him  in  glory. 

"  I  saw  in  my  dream,  that  this  man  went  in  at  the 
gate  ;  and  lo  !  as  he  entered  he  was  transfigured, 
and  he  had  raiment  put  on  him,  that  shone  like 
gold.  There  were  also  that  met  him  with  harps 
and  crowns,  and  gave  unto  him  ;  the  harps  to  praise 
withal  and  the  crowns  in  token  of  honor.  Then  I 


IN  BUNYAN  AND    THE  PILGRTAl's  PROGRESS.    195 

heard  in  my  dream  that  all  the  bells  in  the  city 
rang  again  for  joy  ;  and  that  it  was  said  unto  him, 

'  ENTER  THOU  INTO  THE  JOY  OF  OUR  LORD.' 
I  also  heard  the  man  himself  sing  with  a  loud 
voice,  saying,  BLESSING,  AND  HONOR,  AND  GLORY, 

AND  POWER  BE  UNTO  HIM  THAT  S1TTETH  UPON  THE 
THRONE  AND  UNTO  THE  LAMB  FOR  EVER  AND  EVER." 

In  remarking  on  the  manner  in  which  the 
truths  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  come  to  view  in  the 
Pilgrim's  Progress,  and  constitute  its  texture,  it  is 
important  to  remember  that  Bunyan  was  taught 
those  truths  not  as  a  system,  at  second-hand,  but 
by  the  Spirit  of  God,  through  his  own  experience, 
in  the  Word  of  God.  His  great  work  is  as  a 
piece  of  rich  tapestry,  in  which,  with  the  Word  of 
God  before  him  as  his  original  and  guide,  and  with 
all  his  heaven-colored  materials  tinged  also  in  the 
deep  fountain  of  feeling  in  his  own  converted 
heart,  he  wove  into  one  beautiful  picture  the 
various  spiritual  scenery  and  thrilling  events  of 
his  own  life  and  journeyings  as  a  Christian  pil- 
grim. So,  if  it  is  all  fresh  and  graphic  from  his 
own  experience,  vivid  with  real  life  and  not  with 
speculation,  it  is  also  equally  fresh  and  graphic 
from  the  Word  of  God,  and  answering  thereto  as  a 
counterpart,  all  that  experience  having  been  built 
throughout  upon  that  Word.  We  come  to  it  with 
wrong  criticism,  therefore,  if  we  look  at  it  as  a 
theological  theory  or  system,  though  at  the  same 
time  it  is  beyond  measure  interesting  and  de- 
lightful to  recognize,  while  we  read  it  as  a  book 
of  life,  the  same  great  living  elements  of  truth, 


196      PROVIDENCE,  GRACE,  AND  GENIUS 

with  which  we  are  familiar  in  the  Bible.  The 
anatomy  of  speculation  in  the  Pilgrim's  Progress, 
the  bones,  the  vertebrae,  and  the  articulations,  are, 
if  I  may  so  speak,  the  same  with  the  anatomy  of 
Divine  Truth  in  the  Scriptures  ;  and  hence,  the 
beauty  and  perfect  symmetry  of  the  body  of  life 
formed  upon  them. 

The  purity  of  the  stream  of  the  water  of  life, 
clear  as  crystal,  flowing  through  these  pages,  is 
nowhere,  in  the  Pilgrim's  Progress,  tinged  or 
darkened  with  speculative  error.  Much  the  same 
remark  may  be  made  in  regard  to  that  beautiful, 
most  ingenious,  and  instructive  work,  the  Holy 
War,  in  the  Town  of  Mansoul.  The  theoretical 
system,  and  the  practical  spirit,  can  nowhere  be 
separated,  and  both  proceeded  from  the  Word  and 
the  Spirit  of  God  in  the  understanding  and  the 
heart  of  the  writer. 

Dr.  Scott  has  said,  and  it  is  a  remark  sometimes 
quoted,  that  the  Calvinistic  system  in  theology  has 
never  been  traced  so  unexceptionably  as  in  Bun- 
yan's  Pilgrim's  Progress.  This  remark,  though 
unquestionably  intended  in  the  way  of  praise  to 
Bunyan,  may,  nevertheless,  in  some  respects,  be 
regarded  as  doing  him  injustice  ;  for  he  followed 
no  man's  theological  system  in  the  world ;  he  knew 
almost  as  little,  perhaps  quite  as  little,  about  John 
Calvin,  as  he  did  about  Thomas  Aquinas  himself. 
He  drew  his  theology  from  the  Scriptures,  under  the 
teaching  of  God's  Spirit,  and  thence  only,  and 
from  no  man's  system  in  the  world.  And  in  his 
Pilgrim's  Progress  he  delineates  the  theology  of 
the  Scriptures,  and  of  the  Scriptures  only,  and  not 


IN  BUNYAN  AND  THE  PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS.    197 

of  the  Calvinistic  system,  nor  of  any  other  system, 
with  any  human  name  attached  to  it.  If  any  man's 
name  could  with  any  justice  be  connected  with  Bun- 
yan's  system,  it  would  perhaps  more  probably  be 
that  of  Luther  than  Calvin,  either  of  them  being 
great  and  venerable  ;  for  Luther's  Commentaries  on 
Galatians  had  gone  into  Bunyan's  soul  like  fire, 
whereas,  we  are  not  aware  that  he  ever  read  a 
page  of  Calvin  in  the  world.  No  !  It  was  one  of 
God's  providential  disciplinary  preparatives  for 
him,  that  he  might  write  the  Pilgrim's  Progress, 
that  he  was  kept  from  the  shackles  of  any  human 
system.  You  cannot  tell,  from  the  perusal  of  that 
work,  that  Bunyan  was  of  any  religious  persuasion, 
save  that  he  was  a  living  member  of  the  church  of 
Christ. 

And  this  is  one  of  its  supremest  merits.  It 
belongs  to  no  sect.  It  is  Christianity,  pure  Chris- 
tianity, and  not  churchism.  You  cannot  say,  from 
the  perusal  of  that  work,  whether  its  author  were  a 
Presbyterian,  or  a  Baptist,  or  a  Congregationalist, 
or  a  Methodist,  or  an  Episcopalian,  or  a  Calvinist, 
or  a  Lutheran;  only  that  he  did  not  mean,  in 
drawing  his  own  portrait  of  a  true  Christian,  that 
he  should  belong  to  any  of  these  parties  exclu- 
sively ;  or,  if  there  were  any  one  of  these  that  ap- 
proached nearest  to  the  Bible,  in  its  comprehen- 
sive Christ-like,  gentle,  and  forbearing  spirit,  it 
should  be  that.  The  portraiture  was  a  compound 
of  what  was  excellent  in  them  all ;  for  what  was 
truly  excellent  they  all  drew  from  the  Bible,  and  the 
Pilgrim's  Progress  was  drawn  from  the  Bible,  and 
from  no  sect,  from  nothing  at  second-hand.  There 

26 


198      PROVIDENCE,  GRACE,  AND  GENIUS 

is  no  ite,  nor  ian,  nor  ist,  that  you  dare  put  to 
Christian's  name  ;  no  lisping,  halting  Shibboleth 
of  a  party ;  for  he  came  from  the  mint  of  the 
Holy  Scriptures,  where  no  party  names  disgrace 
the  glory  of  Christianity  ;  where  men  are  neither 
of  Paul,  nor  Apollos,  nor  Cephas,  but  of  Christ ; 
and  so,  blessed  be  God,  under  his  guidance  Bun- 
yan  made  Christian  no  Church-man,  but  Christ's- 
man.  That  is  good,  that  is  noble!  as  great  a 
proof,  almost,  of  the  excellence  of  Bunyan's  book, 
as  it  is  of  the  divine  origin  of  Christianity  that  to 
the  poor  the  Gospel  is  preached. 

And  now,  in  very  truth,  if  Dr.  Scott,  or  any  other 
man  of  like  candour,  finds  in  this  book,  which  is 
drawn  only  from  the  Bible,  the  pure  outlines  of  the 
Calvinistic  system,  then,  so  far,  there  is  a  presumption 
'  in  favor  of  the  Calvinistic  system ;  and  it  is  a  com- 
pliment which  Dr.  Scott  pays  to  that  system,  when 
he  says  it  is  to  be  found  in  a  book,  which  is  taken 
directly  from  the  Bible.  But  in  very  truth,  you  can  no 
more  say  of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress,  that  it  is  the 
Calvinistic  system,  than  you  could  say  of  Raphael's 
great  picture  of  the  Transfiguration,  that  it  was 
copied  from  Washington  Allston.  You  may  say 
both  of  Bunyan  and  of  Calvin  that  they  were 
children  of  God,  and  drank  at  the  fountain  of  the 
Holy  Sriptures,  and  were  fed  and  nourished  by 
God's  Word ;  and  that  so  far  as  their  systems 
resemble  each  other,  it  is  proof  of  their  likeness 
to  their  divine  original ;  but  that  either  copied  or 
contains  the  other,  you  cannot  say.  Just  as  you 
might  say  of  both  Raphael  and  Allston,  that  their 
genius  was  a  gift  from  God ;  one  far  superior  to 


IN  BUNYAN  AND  THE  PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS.    199 

the   other,  indeed,  but   neither  an   imitator,  both 
original,  both  from  God. 

There  has  been  in  this  world  too  much  of  the 
imitation  of  great  names  and  great  authorities  in 
theology,  and  too  little  of  exclusive  adherence  to 
the  Bible  ;  too  much  human  nomenclature,  and  too 
little  divine  baptism.  A  Christian  man  may  say, 
and  ought  to  say,  I  would  not  give  much  for  any 
compliment  to  my  theology,  nor  thank  you  for 
any  description  of  it,  that  likens  it,  and  much 
less  that  links  it,  to  Calvin's,  or  Luther's  or  Arch- 
bishop Usher's,  excellent  though  they  all  be ;  and 
much  less  to  any  man's  system  or  authority  nearer 
to  my  times,  or  contemporary  with  me.  I  follow 
Christ,  Paul,  and  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  not 
Emmoris,  or  Edwards,  or  Jeremy  Taylor,  or  the 
Prayer  Book  Homilies,  nor  any  man's  authority, 
be  he  Augustine  or  Tertullian,  Cherubim  or  Se- 
raphim. O  for  the  spirit  of  combined  indepen- 
dence and  humility  that  characterized  the  noble 
company  of  martyrs  and  reformers !  We  need  a 
greater  independence  of  all  human  authority, 
church  or ^individual,  and  a  more  entire  dependence 
on  the  Word  and  the  Spirit  of  God.  This  makes  a 
true  theologian  ;  and  doubtless,  if  we  could  all  be 
shut  up  in  prison  for  twelve  years,  like  Bunyan, 
with  nothing  but  the  Bible,  and  Fox's  old  Book 
of  Martyrs,  we  too  should  come  out  with  a  living 
theology,  drawn  from  no  man's  system,  but  ready 
to  set  all  men's  hearts  on  fire.  Indeed,  indeed, 
this  is  what  is  needed  in  this  day  of  the  resurrec- 
tion of  rites  and  forms  and  apostolical  successions, 
and  patristical  authorities,  and  traditions  of  the 


200       PROVIDENCE,  GRACE,  AND  GENIUS 

fathers,  and  of  the  rags  of  Judaism  itself  patched 
and  gilded  anew  ;  this  return  to  the  Scriptures 
solely,  and  the  Spirit  of  God,  is  what  is  needed. 

And  here  let  me  say,  in  this  connection,  that  it 
was  a  great  thing  in  that  personal  experience,  by 
which  God  prepared  Bunyan  to  write  the  Pil- 
grim's Progress,  that  he  could  never  say  precisely 
at  what  time  he  became  a  Christian.  So  was  he 
prevented  from  putting  in  his  work  what  many 
men  would  have  set  up  at  its  very  entrance,  a  Pro- 
crustes' bed  for  tender  consciences  in  the  alleged 
necessity  or  importance  of  knowing  the  exact  day 
or  hour  of  a  man's  conversion.  Bunyan  always 
shrank  from  making  his  experience  a  test  for 
others.  His  was  one  of  the  purest,  humblest, 
noblest,  least  bigoted,  most  truly  liberal  minds,  that 
ever  lived.  Non-essentials  he  would  never  set  up 
as  standards.  His  book,  in  its  delineation  of 
Christianity  differs  from  almost  all  uninspired 
records,  and  systems,  in  that  it  has  neither  carica- 
tures, nor  extremes,  nor  marked  deficiences.  Some 
men  get  a  likeness,  indeed,  of  Christian  doctrine, 
but  it  is  by  making  some  feature  predominate  ; 
you  never  think  of  some  men's  system,  but 
you  think  of  some  peculiar  tenet  that  stamps  it, 
that  throws  the  atmosphere,  not  of  the  cross,  but 
of  a  particular  dogma  around  it.  Other  men 
have  monstrous  excrescences,  which  are  imitated 
and  adored  as  virtues,  and  even  held  sacred  as  the 
sign  of  a  party  ;  just  as  if  a  great  commander, 
having  an  enormous  wart  upon  his  features,  should 
have  it  painted  on  the  shield  of  every  one  of  his 
soldiers. 


IN  BUNYAN  AND  THE  PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS.    201 

And  here  I  am  constrained  to  say,  that  this  fig- 
ment of  the  apostolical  succession  is  just  such  a  wart, 
of  which,  in  the  opinion  of  some,  if  there  be  not  a 
true  painting  and  proper  veneration  in  a  man's  es- 
cutcheon, he  is  no  minister  of  Jesus  Christ.  Now 
if  any  such  party  man  in  theology  had  had  the 
making  of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress,  be  you  sure  he 
would  never  have  suffered  a  single  Evangelist  to 
come  in  to  guide  his  Christian,  not  even  to  pull 
him  out  of  the  Slough  of  Despond,  without  first 
painting  him  over  with  this  wart  of  the  apostolical 
succession,  or  giving  him  a  diploma  stating  his 
descent,  in  a  true  line,  down  through  the  Anti- 
Christian  church  of  Rome,  clear  across  the  monstrous 
corruptions  of  the  dark  ages,  from  one  of  the  twelve 
apostles.  Or  he  would  have  put  up  an  exclusive 
church-sign  over  the  wicket  gate  ;  and  that  would 
have  been  making  it  strait  and  narrow  indeed,  in  a 
way  never  contemplated  by  the  Saviour.  Yea,  he 
would  have  let  a  soul  wait  there  even  to  perishing, 
exposed  to  all  the  artillery  of  Satan,  before  he  would 
have  had  even  a  porter  to  open  the  door,  who  was  not 
of  the  true  apostolical  succession.  And  other  men 
would  have  sprinkled  their  pages  with  conversations 
about  the  form  of  baptism,  or  the  sign  of  the  cross,  or 
baptismal  regeneration,  or  the  Book  of  Discipline, 
or  perhaps  the  Saybrook  Platform,  or  one  and 
another  mark  of  party  ;  letting  the  work  be  colored 
in  its  progress,  or  rather  discolored,  by  a  thousand 
varying  shades,  through  the  prism  of  personal  or 
party  prejudice. 

There  is  nothing  of  all  this  in  Bunyan ;  in  him 
you  do  not  meet  truth  in  fragments,  or  in  parts  put 


202  PROVIDENCE,    GRACE,  AND   GENIUS 

for  the  whole.  You  do  not  meet  prejudice  instead 
of  truth,  nor  bigotries,  nor  reproaches,  nor  any 
thing  in  the  sweet  fields  through  which  he  leads 
you,  that  can  drive  away,  or  repel  any,  the 
humblest,  most  forgotten  Christian,  or  the  wisest, 
most  exalted  one,  from  these  lovely  enclosures. 
He  is  as  a  familiar  friend,  an  angel  from  heaven, 
and  not  a  partisan,  walking  with  you  through  green 
pastures,  and  leading  you  beside  still  waters  ;  and 
conversing  with  you  all  the  way  so  lovingly,  so 
instructively,  so  frankly,  that  nothing  can  be  more 
delightful.  You  have  in  him  more  of  the  ubiquity, 
unity  and  harmony  of  divine  truth,  more  of  the 
pervading  breath  and  stamp  of  inspiration,  than  in 
almost  any  other  uninspired  writer. 

If  I  should  compare  Bunyan  with  other  men, 
I  should  say  that  he  was  a  compound  of  the  charac- 
ter of  Peter,  Luther  and  Cowper.  He  had  Peter's 
temptations,  and  deep,  rich  experience  ;  and  Lu- 
ther's Saxon  sturdiriess,  and  honesty,  and  fearless- 
ness of  as  many  devils  as  there  were  tiles  on  the 
roofs  of  the  houses,  and  not  a  little  of  Cowper's  own 
exquisite  humor,  tenderness  and  sensibility.  And 
he  had  as  little  of  the  thirst  of  human  applause  as 
either  Luther  or  Cowper. 

As  Bunyan's  religious  experience  was  not  secta- 
rian, but  Christian,  that  it  might  be  universal,  so 
it  was  thorough  and  deep,  that  the  colors  might 
stand.  In  him  there  was  a  remarkable  translucence 
of  the  general  in  the  particular,  and  of  the  particu- 
lar through  the  general.  His  book  is  to  the  religious 
sensibilities  as  the  day-light  to  the  flowers  ;  from  its 
rays  they  may  imbibe  what  lasting  colors  are  most 


IN  BUNYAN  AND  THE  PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS.     203 

suited  to  their  peculiarities.  So  it  is  like  the  sun 
of  God's  Word,  in  which  the  prism  of  each  indi- 
vidual mind,  under  the  influence  of  the  Divine  Spirit, 
separates  the  heavenly  colors,  and  puts  them  in  a 
new  aspect,  so  that  every  Christian,  in  the  rays  of 
Divine  Truth,  becomes  a  new  reflection  of  the  Di- 
vine Attributes.  Bunyan's  book  has  the  likeness  of 
this  universality,  and  Christians  of  every  sect  may 
take  what  they  please  out  of  it,  except  their  own 
sectarianism  ;  they  cannot  find  that.  In  this  respect 
it  bears  remarkably  the  divine  stamp. 

Bunyan's  mind  was  long  under  the  law,  in  his 
own  religious  experience,  under  a  sense  of  its  con- 
demnation. This  alone  would  never  have  prepared 
him  to  write  the  Pilgrim's  Progress,  though  it  must 
have  prepared  him  to  preach  with  pungency  and 
power.  It  fitted  him  to  sympathize  with  men's 
distresses  on  account  of  sin,  wherever  he  found 
them.  A  man's  religious  anxieties  are  some- 
times so  absorbing,  that  they  defeat  their  own  end, 
they  oppose  themselves  to  his  deliverance.  Just  as 
in  a  crowded  theatre  on  fire,  the  doors  of  which 
open  inward,  the  very  rush  of  the  multitude  to  get 
out  shuts  them  so  fast,  that  there  is  no  unclosing 
them.  Such  at  one  time,  seemed  to  be  Bunyan's 
situation  ;  so  it  often  is  with  the  heart  that  has 
within  it  the  fire  of  a  guilty  conscience;  and  in 
this  case  it  is  only  the  Saviour,  who  knocks  for 
admittance,  that  can  open  the  door,  put  out  the 
flames,  and  change  the  soul  from  a  theatre  of  fiery 
accusing  thoughts  into  a  living  temple  of  his 
grace.  The  Pilgrim's  Progress  would  never  have 
been  given  to  the  world,  except  Bunyan  had  been 


204      PROVIDENCE,  GRACE,  AND  GENIUS 

relieved  of  his  difficulties,  but  these  difficulties 
were  as  necessary,  to  furnish  him  with  the  ex- 
perimental wisdom  requisite  for  the  author  of  that 
book,  as  the  relief  itself. 

There  is  one  book  in  our  language,  with  which 
the  Pilgrim's  Progress  may  be  compared,  as  a 
Reality  with  a  Theory,  a  Personification  with  an 
Abstraction,  and  that  is  Edwards  on  the  Religious 
Affections.  This  book  is  the  work  of  a  holy,  but 
rigid  metaphysician,  analyzing  and  anatomizing  the 
soul,  laying  the  heart  bare,  and  I  had  almost  said, 
drying  it  for  a  model.  As  you  study  it,  you  know 
it  is  truth,  and  you  know  that  your  own  heart  ought 
to  be  like  it ;  but  you  cannot  recognize  in  it  your 
own  flesh  and  blood.  Edwards'  delineations  are 
like  the  skeleton  leaves  of  the  forest,  through 
which,  if  you  hold  them  to  the  sun,  you  can  see 
every  minute  fibre  in  the  light :  Bunyan's  work  is 
like  the  same  leaves  as  fresh  foliage,  green  and 
glossy  in  the  sunshine,  joyfully  whispering  to  the 
breathing  air,  with  now  and  then  the  dense  rain- 
drops glittering  on  them  from  a  June  shower.  In 
Edwards'  work  you  see  the  Divine  life  in  its 
abstract  severity  and  perfection  ;  in  Bunyan's  work 
you  see  it  assuming  a  visible  form,  like  your  own, 
with  your  own  temptations  and  trials,  touched  with 
the  feeling,  and  colored  with  the  shade  of  your  own 
infirmities.  Yet  both  these  books  are  well  nigh 
perfect  in  their  way,  both  equally  adapted  to  their 
purpose.  We  love  the  work  of  Bunyan  as  a 
bosom  friend,  a  sociable  confiding  companion  on 
our  pilgrimage.  We  revere  the  work  of  Edwards, 
as  a  deep,  grave  teacher,  but  its  stern  accuracy 


IN    BUNYAN  AND    THE    PILGRIM'S    PROGRESS.    205 

make  us  tremble.  Bunyan  encourages,  consoles, 
animates,  delights,  sympathises  with  us  ;  Edwards 
cross-examines,  probes,  scrutinizes,  alarms  us. 
Bunyan  looks  on  us  as  a  sweet  angel,  as  one 
of  his  own  shining  ones,  come  to  take  off  our 
burden,  and  put  on  our  robe  ;  Edwards,  with  the 
rigidity  of  a  geometrician,  as  a  sort  of  military 
surveyor  of  the  king's  roads,  meets  us  with  his 
map,  and  shows  us  how  we  have  wandered  from 
the  way,  and  makes  us  feel  as  if  we  never  were  in 
it.  Bunyan  carries  our  sensibilities,  Edwards  our 
convictions.  In  short,  Bunyan  is  the  Man,  the 
Pilgrim  ;  Edwards  the  Metaphysician. 

Bunyan  was  as  great  a  master  of  Allegory  as 
Edwards  was  of  Logic  and  Metaphysics ;  but  not 
artificially  so,  not  designedly  so,  not  as  a  matter  of 
study.  He  scarcely  knew  the  meaning  of  the 
word  allegory,  much  less  any  rules  or  principles 
for  its  conduct ;  and  the  great  beauty  of  his  own 
is  that  it  speaks  to  the  heart;  it  is  the  language 
of  nature,  and  needs  no  commentator  to  under- 
stand it.  It  is  not  like  the  allegorical  friezes  of 
Spenser  or  of  Dante,  or  like  those  on  a  Grecian 
Temple,  which  may  pass  into  darkness  in  a  single 
generation,  as  to  all  meaning  but  that  of  the  ex- 
quisite beauty  of  the  sculpture,  except  there  be 
a  minute  traditionary  commentary.  Bunyan's  Al- 
legory  is  a  universal  language. 

D'Israeli  has  well  designated  Bunyan  as  the 
Spenser  of  the  people  ;  every  one  familiar  with 
the  Fairy  Queen  must  acknowledge  the  truth  of 
the  description.  Johnson  thought  Bunyan  must 
have  read  Spenser,  and  there  are  some  passages 

27 


206      PROVIDENCE,  GRACE,  AND  GENIUS 

in  each  writer  surprisingly  similar,  especially  in 
each  writer's  description  of  Despair.  If  it  were 
not  apparently  incongruous,  we  would  call  him, 
on  another  score,  the  spiritual  Shakspeare  of  the 
world,  for  the  accuracy  and  charm  with  which  he 
has  delineated  the  changes  and  progress  of  the 
spiritual  life,  are  not  less  exquisite,  than  those  of 
Shakspeare  in  the  Seven  Ages,  and  innumerable 
scenes  of  this  world's  existence.  He  is  scarcely  less 
to  be  praised  than  Shakspeare  for  the  purity  of  his 
language,  and  the  natural  simplicity  of  his  style.  It 
comes,  as  I  have  said,  even  nearer  to  the  common 
diction  of  good  conversation. 

The  allegorical  image  of  a  Pilgrimage  is  beauti- 
fully adapted  to  express  the  dangers  and  hardships 
of  the  Christian  Life  :  a  Pilgrimage,  with  a  glorious 
city  at  its  end,  into  which  the  weary  but  faithful 
Pilgrim  shall  be  received,  to  repose  forever  from  his 
toils.  Every  thing  connected  with  the  idea  is 
pleasant  to  the  imagination.  It  has  been  the 
origin  of  many  beautiful  hymns.  "  Jerusalem  !  my 
happy  home,"  is  a  sweet  one.  The  glories  of 
the  Celestial  City,  and  the  employments  of  its 
inhabitants,  are  the  sources  of  many  images  in  the 
Bible,  and  constitute  much  of  the  poetry  in  the 
Apocalypse.  And  these  images  always  had  a 
powerful  effect  upon  the  inmost  soul  of  Bunyan- 
Spenser  remembered  them  not  a  little.  The  fol- 
lowing beautiful  stanzas  from  the  Fairy  Queen  are 
a  picture  in  miniature  of  the  close  of  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress  : 

From  thence  far  offhe  unto  him  did  show, 
A  little  path  that  was  both  steep  and  long, 


IN  BUNYAN  AND  THE  PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS.    207 

Which  to  a  goodly  city  led  his  view, 
Whose  walls  and  towers  were  builded  high  and  strong 
Of  pearl  and  precious  stone,  that  earthly  tongue 
Cannot  describe,  nor  wit  of  man  can  tell ; 
Too  high  a  ditty  for  my  simple  song ! 
The  city  of  the  Great  King  hight  it  well, 
Wherein  eternal  peace  and  happiness  doth  dwell. 

As  he  thereon  stood  gazing,  he  might  see 
The  blessed  angels  to  and  fro  descend 
From  highest  Heaven  in  gladsome  company, 
And  with  great  joy  into  that  city  wend, 
As  commonly  as  friend  doth  with  his  friend ; 
Whereat  he  wondered  much,  and  'gan  inquire 
What  stately  buildings  durst  so  high  extend 
Her  lofty  towers  into  the  starry  sphere, 
And  what  unknowen  nation  there  empeopled  were. 

We  know  of  no  other  work  in  which  we  take  a 
deeper  sympathetic  interest  in  all  the  circumstances 
of  danger,  trial,  or  happiness  befalling  the  hero. 
The  honesty,  integrity,  open-heartedness,  humor, 
simplicity  and  deep  sensibility  of  Christian's 
character,  make  us  love  him  :  nor -is  there  a  cha- 
racter depicted  in  all  English  literature  that  stands 
out  to  the  mind  in  bolder  truth  and  originality. 
There  is  a  wonderful  charm  and  truth  to  nature  in 
Christian's  manifest  growth  in  grace  and  wisdom. 
What  a  different  being  is  Christian  on  the  De- 
lectable Mountains,  or  in  the  land  Beulah,  and 
Christian  when  he  first  set  out  on  his  pilgrimage. 
And  yet  he  is  always  the  same  being  ;  we  recognize 
him  at  once.  The  change  is  not  of  the  original 
features  of  his  character,  but  a  change  into  the 
character  of  the  "  Lord  of  the  way,"  a  gradual 
imbuing  with  his  spirit ;  a  change,  in  Paul's  ex- 
pressive language,  from  glory  to  glory  into  the 
same  image.  In  proportion  as  he  arrives  nearer 
the  Celestial  City  he  shines  brighter,  his  character 


208      PROVIDENCE,  GRACE,  AND  GENIUS 

unfolds  in  greater  richness,  he  commands  more 
veneration  from  us,  without  losing  any  of  our  affec- 
tion. As  we  witness  his  steadily  increasing  lustre, 
we  think  of  that  beautiful  Scripture  image,  the 
path  of  the  Just  is  as  a  shining  light,  that  shineth 
more  and  more  unto  the  perfect  day.  From  be- 
ing an  unwary  Pilgrim,  just  setting  out,  with  all 
the  rags  of  the  City  of  Destruction  about  him,  and 
the  burden  of  guilt  bending  him  down,  he  becomes 
that  delightful  character,  an  experienced  Christian  ; 
with  the  robe  given  him  by  the  Shining  Ones, 
shining  brighter  and  brighter,  and  the  roll  of  assu 
ranee  becoming  clearer,  and  courage  more  con- 
firmed and  steady,  and  in  broader  and  broader 
light  Heaven  reflected  from  his  countenance.  We 
go  with  him  in  his  Pilgrimage  all  the  way.  We 
enter  the  Interpreter's  house  ;  we  see  all  the  varie- 
ties which  the  Lord,  of  the  Way  keeps  there  for  the 
entertainment  of  the  Pilgrims ;  we  solemnly  gaze 
on  that  terrible  picture  of  the  Man  of  Despair  ;  we 
tremble  as  we  listen  to  the  Dream  of  the  Judg- 
ment ;  and  the  description  of  that  venturous  man 
that  cut  his  way  through  the  armed  men,  and  won 
eternal  glory,  ravishes  our  hearts.  Then  we  leave 
the  house  comforted  and  refreshed,  and  proceed  on 
our  way ;  we  climb  the  hill  Difficulty,  we  rest  in 
the  Arbour,  and  lose  ou*  roll,  and  come  back  weep- 
ing and  seeking  for  it ;  in  this  much  time  is  lost,  and 
the  night  comes  on,  and  we  are  fearful  of  the  dark- 
ness. We  tremble  and  weep  for  Christian  in  his 
dreadful  fight  with  Apollyon,  in  the  Valley  of  Hu- 
miliation ;  we  rejoice  in  the  radiant  smile  that  at 
length  breaks  out  from  his  distressed  soul  over  his 


IN  BUNYAN  AND    THE  PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS.    209 

countenance  ;  then  we  plunge  with  him  into  the 
Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death,  and  amidst  all  its 
gloom  and  horrors  and  hobgoblins,  we  think  we 
hear  a  voice  singing;  by  and  by  we  overtake 
Faitljful  ;  we  pass  through  Vanity  Fair ;  farther 
on  we  become  tired  of  the  way,  and  turn  aside 
from  the  rough  path  to  go  in  the  soft  meadow  ;  we 
are  overtaken  by  the  storm  ;  we  fall  into  Giant 
Despair's  Castle ;  we  are  there  from  Wednesday 
noon  till  Saturday  night ; — there  never  was  a  poem 
into  which  we  entered  so  wholly,  and  with  all  the 
heart,  and  in  such  fervent  love  and  believing  as- 
surance. 

Now  all  this  admirable  accuracy  and  beauty 
Bunyan  wrought  seemingly  without  design.  It 
was  not  so  much  an  exertion,  a  labor  of  his  mind, 
as  the  promptings  and  wanderings  at  will  of  his 
unconscious  genius.  He  never  thought  of  doing 
all  this,  but  he  did  it.  He  was  as  a  child  under  the 
power  and  guidance  of  his  genius,  and  with  a 
child's  admiration  he  would  look  upon  the  crea- 
tions which  his  own  imagination  presented  to  his 
mind.  Thus  Bunyan  went  on,  painting  that  nar- 
row way,  and  the  exquisite  scenery  each  side  of  it, 
and  the  many  characters  crossing,  appearing,  and 
passing  at  a  distance,  and  Christian  and  Hopeful 
on  their  way,  and  making  every  part  of  the  pic- 
ture, as  he  proceeded,  harmonize  with  the  whole, 
and  yet  add  anew  to  its  meaning,  and  all  with  as 
much  quiet  unconscious  ease  and  simplicity,  as  an 
infant  would  put  together  a  baby-house  of  cards,  or 
as  the  frost  on  a  winter's  night  would  draw  a  picture 
on  the  window. 


210       PROVIDENCE,  GRACE,  AND  GENIUS 

The  minute  passages  of  beauty,  and  the  ex- 
quisite lessons  of  the  allegory,  are  so  many  from 
beginning  to  end,  that  it  is  vain  to  make  a  selection. 
The  whole  description  of  the  Slough  of  Despond, 
the  character  of  Pliable,  and  his  getting  out  on  the 
side  nearest  the  "City  of  Destruction,  and  the  re- 
ception he  met  from  his  neighbors  when  he  came 
back,  are  rich  in  truth  and  beauty.  The  comparison 
of  Christian's  and  Faithful's  experience  is  beauti- 
ful ;  so  is  Faithful's  description  of  a  bold  fellow  he 
met  in  the  Valley  of  Humiliation — Shame  ;  so  is 
their  encounter  with  the  plausible,  gentlemanly, 
money-making  Demas.  The  character  of  Talk- 
ative, and  the  way  they  took  to  prove  him,  are 
excellent.  Their  passage  through  Vanity  Fair,  and 
the  whole  trial  in  that  town,  with  the  names 
of  the  jurors  and  judges,  and  the  characteristic 
speeches  of  each,  are  admirably  described.  The 
character  of  By-ends,  who  was  for  religion  in  her 
silver  slippers,  and  the  humour  and  keen  satire 
in  the  dialogue  between  By-ends,  Money-love. 
Save-all,  arid  Hold-the-World,  are  equally  ad- 
mirable. Then  we  may  remember  that  pleasant 
river,  and  the  roughness  of  the  road,  where  it  parted 
from  the  river,  so  that  it  made  them  not  scrupulous 
to  get  over  the  stile,  and  walk  in  By-Path  Mea- 
dow, when  that  tempestuous  night  came  on  ;  and 
though  amidst  the  darkness  they  heard  a  voice 
sounding,  Let  thy  feet  be  to  the  king's  highway, 
yet,  with  all  the  effort  they  made,  they  could  not 
that  night  regain  it,  but  trespassed  on  Giant  De- 
spair's grounds,  and  fell  into  his  Castle.  That 
night  was  a  dreadful  night  for  the  Pilgrims.  The 


IN  BUNYAN  AND  THE  PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS.    211 

Key  of  Promise,  in  Christian's  bosom,  while  lying 
in  the  Dungeon  is  a  beautiful  incident.     It  was  a 
pleasant  thing  to  see  the  Pilgrims,  when  they  had 
escaped  the  Giant,   and  got  again  to  the   King's 
highway,   and  so  were  safe,  devising  an  inscrip- 
tion to  keep  those,  that  should  come  after,  from 
falling,    as  they   did,    into    the    hands    of  Giant 
Despair.     "  Over  this  stile  is  the  way  to  Doubting 
Castle,  kept  by  Giant  Despair,  who  despiseth  the 
King   of  the  Celestial   Country,    and    seeks     to 
destroy  his  holy  Pilgrims."      On  the  Delectable 
Mountains  they  saw  some  pleasant  and  admoni- 
tory sights.     When  the   Shepherds  unconsciously 
were  telling   Hopeful  and  Christian  of  Doubting 
Castle  and  Giant  Despair,  Christian   and   Hopeful 
looked  meaningly  on  one  another,  but  said  nothing. 
It  is  also  a  beautiful  incident,  when,  though  they 
were    bidden    to    look    through    the  telescope    at 
the  Celestial  City,  in  the  distance,  their  hands  so 
trembled  at  the  remembrance  of  the  dangers  they 
had  seen,  that  they  could  not  hold  the  glass  so  as  to 
discern    it    with    any    clearness.      The   dialogue 
between  Hopeful  and  Christian  on   Little-Faith's 
misfortunes,  is  exceedingly  characteristic  and   full 
of  humor.     One  of  the  most  solemn  and  striking 
lessons  is  taught  in  the  character  of  Ignorance,  who 
met  with  none  of  the  difficulties  Christian  passed 
through,  and  was   even  ferried  over  the  river  of 
Death  in  the  boat    of    one    called    Self-Conceit. 
Then  his  disappointment  at  the  Gate  of  the  City  ! 

The  scenery,  and  the  countries  all  the  way  that 
lie  on  both  sides  the  path,  are  in  perfect  keeping 
with  the  whole  allegory.  So  are  the  paths  that 


212       PROVIDENCE,  GRACE,  AND  GENIUS 

"butt  down"  on  the  king's  highway,  by  which  many 
enter,  because  the  right  way  is  too  far  round,  not 
entering  at  the  wicket  gate,  through  which  Chris- 
tian, Faithful  and  Hopeful  entered,  after  sore  dif- 
ficulties encountered.  The  characters  we  meet 
here  and  there  on  the  road,  that  have  entered  by 
such  lanes  and  cross  paths,  are  equally  in  keeping, 
and  as  they  come  successively  under  Christian's 
observation,  it  is  amusing  to  see  the  manner  in 
which,  by  turns,  their  real  character  is  exposed 
in  his  honest,  plain-dealing,  rugged  and  humorous 
way.  The  conversation  of  Hopeful  and  Christian 
all  along,  is  truly  delightful.  It  is  as  becometh 
saints;  grave,  sincere,  full  of  good  sense  and  dis- 
crimination, with  much  cheerful  pleasantry  ;  ex- 
hibiting Hopeful's  youthful  inexperience  and  ardour, 
and  Christian's  superior  experience,  richness  of 
thought,  frankness  and  kindness.  They  walk  to- 
gether so  lovingly,  so  sympathizing,  so  faithful  to 
each  other,  that  all  must  acknowledge  they  are  a 
perfect  example  of  the  brotherly  kindness  becoming 
the  fellow-pilgrims  of  that  way. 

Between  the  first  and  second  parts  of  the  Pil- 
grim's Progress  there  is  a  diversity  that  may  be 
compared  to  that  between  the  Paradise  Lost  and 
the  Paradise  Regained.  Milton's  genius,  in  his 
second  effort,  appeared  not  less  than  the  excess 
of  glory  obscured.  In  the  second  part  of  Bunyan's 
work  we  readily  recognize,  and  are  pleased  to  fol- 
low the  footsteps  of  that  original  genius,  which  has 
so  delighted  us  in  the  first.  Yet  we  feel  that  the 
region  is  inferior ;  there  is  more  familiarity  and 
humour,  but  less  poetry ;  and  though  there  is  the 


IN  BUNYAN  AND    THE  PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS.    213 

same  vigorous  delineation  of  character,  the  allegory 
is  imperfect.  One  of  the  most  humorous  and 
amusing  portions  of  the  whole  work  is  the  account 
of  the  courtship  between  Mercy  and  Mr.  Brisk, 
which  took  place  while  the  parties  were  at  the 
house  of  the  Interpreter.  There  are  also  some 
exquisitely  beautiful  snatches  of  melody  in  this 
second  part  of  the  pilgrimage. 

Perhaps  no  other  work  could  be  named,  which, 
admired  by  cultivated  minds,  has  had  at  the  same 
time  such  an  ameliorating  effect  on  the  lower  classes 
in  society  as  the  Pilgrim's  Progress.  It  is  a  work 
so  full  of  native  good  sense,  that  no  mind  can  read 
it,  without  gaining  in  wisdom  and  vigor  of  judg- 
ment. What  an  amazing  effect  must  it  have  pro 
duced  in  this  way  on  the  mass  of  common  minds 
brought  under  its  power !  We  cannot  compute  the 
good  it  has  thus  accomplished  on  earth,  nor  tell  the 
number  of  souls  it  may  have  been  the  means  of 
guiding  to  Heaven.  It  is  one  of  the  books,  that,  by 
being  connected  with  the  dearest  associations  of 
childhood,  always  retain  their  hold  on  the  heart,  and 
it  exerts  a  double  influence  when,  at  a  graver  age, 
and  less  under  the  despotism  given  to  imagination  in 
childhood,  we  read  it  with  a  serene  and  thoughtful 
perception  of  its  meaning.  How  many  children 
have  become  better  citizens  of  the  world  through 
life  by  the  perusal  of  this  book  almost  in  infancy ! 
And  how  many,  through  its  instrumentality,  may 
have  been  fitted  after  life  to  live  forever.  The 
Christian  warfare  is  here  arrayed  in  the  glow  of 
imagination,  to  make  it  attractive.  How  many 
Pilgrims,  in  hours  when  perseverance  was  almost 

28 


214      PROVIDENCE,  GRACE,  AND  GENIUS 

exhausted,  and  patience  was  yielding,  and  clouds 
and  darkness  were  gathering,  have  felt  a  sudden 
return  of  animation  and  courage  from  the  remem- 
brance of  Christian's  severe  conflicts,  and  his  glo- 
rious entrance  at  last  through  the  gates  into  the 
city ! 

As  the  work  draws  to  its  conclusion,  the  poet's 
soul  seems  to  expand  with  the  glory  of  the  subject. 
The  description  of  Christian  and  Hopeful's  en- 
trance up  through  the  regions  of  air  into  the  Celestial 
City,  preceded  by  the  touching  account  of  their 
passing  the  River  of  Death,  though  composed  of 
the  simplest  materials,  and  depicted  in  the  simplest 
language,  with  Scripture  imagery  almost  exclu- 
sively, constitutes  one  of  the  finest  passages  in 
English  literature.  The  Shining  Ones,  and  the 
beauty  and  glory  of  their  conversation  ;  the  angels 
and  their  melodious  notes ;  the  Pilgrims  among 
them,  in  Heaven,  as  it  were,  before  they  come  at 
it ;  the  city  itself  in  view,  and  all  the  bells  ringing 
with  joy  of  their  welcome  ;  the  warm  and  joyful 
thoughts  they  had  about  their  own  dwelling  there 
with  such  a  company,  and  that  forever  and  ever ; 
the  letters  of  gold  written  over  the  gate  ;  the  trans- 
figuration of  the  men  as  they  entered,  and  the  rai- 
ment put  on  them  that  shone  like  gold  ;  the  harps 
and  crowns  given  them,  the  harps  to  praise  withal, 
and  the  crowns  in  token  of  honor  ;  the  bells  in  the 
city  ringing  again  for  joy ;  the  shout  of  welcome, 
ENTER  YE  INTO  THE  JOY  OF  OUR  LORD  ;  the  men 
themselves  singing  with  a  loud  voice,  BLESSING, 
AND  HONOR,  AND  GLORY,  AND  POWER  BE  UNTO  HIM 
THAT  SITTETH  UPON  THE  THRONE,  AND  UNTO  THE 
LAMB  FOR  EVER  AND  EVER  ! 


IN  BUNYAN  AND  THE  PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS.    215 

Now,  says  the  Dreamer,  just  as  the  gates  were 
opened  to  let  in  the  men,  I  looked  in  after  them, 
and  behold  the  city  shone  like  the  sun ;  the  streets 
also  were  paved  with  gold,  and  in  them  walked 
many  men,  with  crowns  upon  their  heads,  palms 
in  their  hands,  and  golden  harps  to  sing  praises 
withal.  There  were  also  of  them  that  had  wings  ; 
and  they  answered  one  another  without  inter- 
mission, saying,  Holy,  holy,  holy  is  the  Lord  ; 
and  after  that,  they  shut  up  the  gates  ;  which,  when 
I  had  seen,  1  wished  myself  among  them. 

And  who  would  not  wish  himself  among  them  1  or 
what  man,  reading  of  these  things,  or  hearing  of 
these  things,  can  refuse  to  join  them  ?  In  what 
attractive  beauty  of  description  are  the  life  and  the 
rewards  of  practical  religion  here  delineated  !  The 
whole  course  of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress  shines  with 
a  light  borrowed  from  its  close.  Just  so  it  is  in 
the  reality.  The  splendors  of  the  Celestial  City, 
though  rather  to  be  dreamed  of  and  guessed  at, 
than  distinctly  seen,  do,  nevertheless,  break  from 
the  clouds,  and  fall  from  mountain  top  to  mountain 
top,  flashing  on  forest  and  vale,  down  into  the 
most  difficult  craggy  passes  of  our  mortal  pil- 
grimage. At  times,  the  domes  and  towers  seem 
resting  on  our  earthly  horizon,  and  in  a  season  of 
fair  weather  our  souls  have  sight  of  the  streets  of 
gold,  the  gates  of  pearl,  the  walls  of  jasper.  Then 
we  walk  many  days  under  the  remembrance  of  such 
a  vision.  At  other  times  the  inhabitants  of  that 
city  seem  to  be  walking  with  us,  and  ministering  to 
us  ;  men  do  eat  angels'  food  ;  melodious  music 
ravishes  the  ear ;  listening  intently,  we  think  we 


216      PROVIDENCE,  GRACE,  AND  GENIUS 

hear  the  chimes  of  bells  wafted  across  the  sea  ;  and 
sometimes  the  gales  are  laden  with  such  fragrant 
spicy  airs,  that  a  single  breath  of  them  makes  the 
soul  recognize  its  immortal  Paradise,  and  almost 
transports  it  thither. 

When  shall  the  day  break,  and  the  shadows  flee 
away !  It  is  night  here,  but  there  the  sun  shall 
never  go  down.  Light  is  sown  for  the  righteous, 
and  in  the  harvest  time  it  shall  come  up  ;  but  as 
Goodwin  beautifully  remarks  in  his  "  Child  of  Light 
Walking  in  Darkness,"  we  must  be  content  to  let  it 
lie  under  ground  ;  and  the  longer  it  doth  so,  the 
greater  crop  and  harvest  will  spring  up  in  the  end. 

In  the  Pilgrim's  Progress  there  is  a  charming 
passage  descriptive  of  the  Pilgrim's  entertainment 
in  the  House  Beautiful,  which  was  thus  : — "  The 
Pilgrim  they  laid  in  a  large  upper  chamber,  whose 
windows  opened  towards  the  sunrising  ;  the  name 
of  the  chamber  was  Peace  ;  where  he  slept  till 
break  of  day,  and  then  he  awoke  and  sang."  A 
great  and  thoughtful  poet  has  written  a  poem  with 
this  description  as  its  motto,  which  he  has  entitled 
"  Day-break,"  and  which  closes  with  the  following 
stanza  : — 

How  suddenly  that  strait  and  glittering  shaft 
Shot  'thwart  the  earth  !    In  crown  of  living  fire 
Up  comes  the  day !    As  if  they,  conscious,  quaffed 
The  sunny  flood,  hill,  forest,  city,  spire, 
Laugh  in  the  wakening  light.    Go,  vain  Desire  ! 
The  dusky  lights  have  gone ;  go  thou  thy  way ! 
And  pining  Discontent,  like  them  expire  ! 
Be  called  my  chamber  PEACE,  when  ends  the  day, 
And  let  me,  with  the  dawn,  like  PILGRIM,  sing  and  pray 

OEJl  MONSl  4  OS  A. 


THE 

CITY     OF     DESTRUCTION 

AND 

SLOUGH   OF    DESPOND. 


Locality  of  the  City  of  Destruction. — Character  of  Christian. — The  awakened 
shiner. — The  shiner  convinced  of  sin,  and  fleeing  from  the  wrath  to  come. — Charac- 
ter of  Pliable. — Difference  between  a  burden  and  no  burden. — Pliable  and  Chris- 
tian in  the  Slough  of  Despond. — Mr.  Worldly  Wiseman  and  his  instructions. — Mr. 
Legality  and  the  town  of  Carnal  Policy.— The  terrors  of  the  Law  of  God  to  an 
awakened  conscience. — Christian's  entrance  at  the  Wicket  Gate. 


THE  CITY  OF  DESTRUCTION  !  We  are  all  inha- 
bitants of  it ;  no  mai:  n^eds  ask,  Where  is  it  ? 
What  is  it  1  Who  are  its  people  ?  Alas !  our 
world  of  sin  is  the  City  of  Destruction,  and  we 
know  of  a  certainty  from  God's  Word  that  it  is  to  be 
burned  up,  and  that  if  we  do  not  escape  from  it, 
though  we  may  die  at  peace  in  it  before  its  con- 
flagration, yet  to  be  found  with  its  spirit  in  our 
souls  when  we  die,  is  to  be  forever  miserable. 
There  is  a  blessed  pilgrimage  from  the  City  of 
Destruction  to  the  City  of  Immanuel.  It  is  full  of 
dangers,  trials,  difficulties  ;  but  the  perils  are  not 
worthy  to  be  named  in  comparison  with  the  glory  at 
its  close.  And  indeed  the  pilgrimage  itself,  with 
all  its  roughnesses  and  trials,  is  romantic  and  de- 

29 


218  THE    CITY    OF    DESTRUCTION 

lightful.  As  the  author  of  this  book  has  delineated 
it,  he  makes  many  a  man  wish  that  he  were  set  out 
in  it.  And  yet  this  delineation  is  not  in  the  coloring 
of  imagination,  but  of  sober  reality ;  there  is  nothing 
overdrawn,  nothing  exaggerated  in  it ;  the  scenery 
along  the  way  is  not  painted  too  beautiful,  there  are 
no  ecstacies,  or  rapturous  frames,  or  revelations  in 
it ;  the  coloring  is  sober,  with  all  its  richness,  the 
experience  is  human  with  all  its  variety ;  the  very 
angels  are  more  like  gentle  sympathising  friends, 
than  glittering  supernatural  intelligences. 

It  is  this  charm  of  common  sense  and  reality 
that  constitutes  in  a  great  measure  the  power  of  this 
book.  Its  characters  are  not  removed  from  our  own 
experience  ;  the  piety  of  Christian,  though  very  rich 
and  mellow,  is  progressive,  and  for  every  day's  use, 
and  for  every  saint's  attainment.  It  is  neither 
mystical,  nor  visionary,  nor  in  extremes  ;  it  is  not 
perfection,  nor  ascetic  sublimation  from  the  world, 
nor  contemplation,  nor  penance,  nor  the  luxury  of 
mere  spiritual  frames  and  exercises.  It  is  deep, 
sincere,  gentle,  practical,  full  of  the  fruits  of  the 
Spirit,  full  of  intelligence  and  kindness,  of  love, 
joy,  peace,  long-suffering,  goodness  and  truth. 
They  are  every  day  virtues  which  shine  in  Chris- 
tian ;  and  his  character  is  an  example  of  what  ours 
ought  to  be  in  our  daily  pilgrimage.  His  conflicts 
are  such  as  every  Christian  may  pass  through,  his 
consolations  and  enjoyments  such  as  every  Chris 
tian  may  experience,  his  knowledge  of  the  Word  of 
God,  and  indeed  all  his  attainments,  within  reach 
of  every  pilgrim.  He  is  indeed  a  model  of  excel- 
lence for  all. 


AND    SLOUGH    OF    DESPOND.  219 

I  think  we  shall  observe,  as  we  study  the  book 
through,  that  from  first  to  last  Bunyan  has  com- 
posed this  character  out  of  the  most  general  and 
universally    recognized    traits    belonging   to    the 
experience  of  a  child  of  God.     This,  it   is  clear, 
was  necessary,  in  order  to  its  highest  success  and 
usefulness.     And  yet  the  individuality  and  origi- 
nality of  the  character  is  as  perfect,  as  striking,  as 
graphic,  as  if  it  were  the  delineation  from  life  of 
some  person  well  known  to   Bunyan  with  all  his 
peculiarities.     Now  we  do  not  suppose  that  Bun- 
yan intended  this  in  so  definite  a  form  of  art  and 
philosophy ;  we  do  not  suppose  that  he  said  within 
himself,    I    must     make    this    Christian,    in    the 
absence  of  all  peculiarities,  a  suitable  model  for  all, 
and  yet,  in  the  translucence  through  his  particular 
characteristics,  of  the  general  qualities  belonging 
to  our  conception  of  a  Christian,  a  character  recog- 
nisable by,  and  the  counterpart  of,  every  individual. 
This  would  involve  a  greater  degree  of  art  and 
criticism  than  Bunyan  ever  exercised  ;  and  yet  his 
genius,  under  the  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  did 
spontaneously  work  according  to  these  rules.     Just 
so,  Bunyan's  own  incomparable  freedom  from  all 
sectarianism,  even  in  a  sectarian  age,  has  prevented 
the  character  of  Christian  and  of  the  whole  Progress 
of  the  Pilgrim,  from  being  narrowed  or  disfigured 
by    any   thing   which   could  even  be  tortured   to 
restrict  its  application,   or  its  preferences,  to  any 
religious   party.     Accordingly,  the  more  bigoted, 
exclusive  and  sectarian  a  man  is,  the  less  he  will 
like  this  book  ;  to  a  violent  Churchman  it  wants  a 
bishop  and  the  apostolical  succession  :  to  a  rigid 


220  THE    CITY    OF    DESTRUCTION 

Baptist  it  wants  immersion  as  the  Wicket  Gate. 
But  Bunyan  was  wonderfully  preserved  from  af- 
fixing to  any  part  of  this  book  the  seal  of  any  such 
local  or  party  distinctions.  Though  he  was  himself 
a  Baptist,  yet  he  was  an  open  communion  Baptist, 
and  experienced  the  wrath  of  his  more  exclusive 
Baptist  brethren,  because  he  laid  no  stress  what- 
ever on  their  peculiarities.  They  had  bitter  con- 
troversies against  him  as  a  deserter  from  the  faith, 
because  he  would  not  pronounce  their  Shibboleths, 
and  was  completely  free  from  the  unchurching 
spirit  of  his  age. 

Now  here  was  a  characteristic  of  the  presence 
of   the    Holy    Spirit     in     him   very   remarkable ; 
and   his    work   accordingly   has  come  from    that 
school  of   heaven  in  which    no  man  is  of  Apol- 
los,  or  Cephas,  or  Paul,   but  all  of  Christ,     Ah, 
this    is    delightful ;    and    accordingly,    in  such    a 
controversial  world  as  this,  this  work   is  like  oil 
upon  the   waters;  it  is   as  the  very   voice  of  the 
Saviour  in  the  tempest,  Peace,  be  still ;  it  is  like  the 
dove  with  her  olive  leaf,  a  prophet  of  the  garden  of 
the  Lord  ;  it  is  like  a  white-robed  herald  with  his 
sacred   flag,    privileged    to   go    every  where,   and 
admitted    every    where,    even  amidst    contending 
armies.     This  book  will  remain,  when  there  shall 
be  nothing  to  hurt  nor  destroy  in  all  God's  holy 
mountain,  when  Judah  shall  no  more  vex  Ephraim, 
nor  Ephraim  envy  Judah ;  for  it  has  come  forth  from 
the  mint  of  celestial  universal  love  ;   it  has  no  leaf 
in   it,  which   the  Spirit  of  God  may  not  sweetly 
mingle  with  those  leaves  of  the  Tree  of  Life  for 
the  healing  of  the  nations.     We   doubt  whether 


AND    SLOUGH    OF    DESPOND.  221 

there  was  another  individual  in  that  age,  except 
Leighton,  whose  piety  could  have  produced  so 
catholic,  so  unsectarian,  so  heavenly  a  work. 

In  accordance  with  what  I  have  said,  you  will 
perceive  how  Bunyan  commences  with  his  Pil- 
grim. He  begins  with  releasing  himself  and  the 
position  of  the  Dreamer  from  any  positive  locality ; 
he  does  not  suffer  his  personal  situation  or  feelings 
to  throw  a  single  determinate  shade  upon  the  pic- 
ture; he  does  not  say,  (as  many  persons  would 
very  naturally  have  said,)  As  I  lay  suffering  for 
the  Gospel  in  the  prison  of  Bedford,  but,  As  I 
walked  through  the  wilderness  of  this  world,  I 
lighted  upon  a  certain  place  where  was  a  den, 
and  laid  me  down  in  that  place  to  sleep  ;  and  as 
I  slept,  I  dreamed  a  dream.  Ah,  it  was  a  wil- 
derness  indeed,  and  no  small  part  of  Bunyan's 
life  was  spent  in  the  deserts  and  caves  of  it.  It 
is  a  wilderness  to  us  all,  but  to  many  a  wilder- 
ness of  sinful  pleasures  infinitely  more  dangerous 
than  dens  and  caves,  bonds  and  imprisonments. 
It  is  a  wilderness  to  the  soul,  away  from  its  Y 
God,  surrounded  by  dangers,  exposed  to  the  wiles 
of  its  great  adversary  the  devil,  in  peril  of  eternal 
ruin. 

There  are  lions,  chained  and  unchained,  in  the   -** 
way,  and  temptations  of  every  shape  and  name, 
and  unseen  dangers  too,  from  which  God  alone 
can  protect  us.     He  only  walks  safely  who  walks 
as  a  stranger  and  a  pilgrim. 

Yet  the  dear  path  to  thine  abode, 

Lies  through  this  horrid  land; 
Lord,  we  would  trace  the  dangerous  road. 

And  run  at  thy  command. 


222  THE    CITY    OF    DESTUCTION 

And  if  we  do  this,  then  a  blessed  Faith  comes  in, 
and  ours  is  a  more  cheerful,  delightful,  heavenly 
vision.  We  walk  under  the  gracious  care,  and  in 
the  safe  dominions  of  the  King  of  the  Celestial 
City  ;  we  travel  the  king's  own  highway ;  we  come 
to  the  land  Beulah  ; 

We're  marching  through  ImmanuePs  ground 
To  fairer  worlds  on  high  ! 

You  will  observe  what  honor,  from  his  Pilgrim's 
first  setting  out,  Bunyan  puts  upon  the  Word  of 
God.  He  would  give  to  no  inferior  instrumentality, 
not  even  to  one  of  God's  Providences,  the  business 
of  awakening  his  Pilgrim  to  a  sense  of  his  danger  ; 
but  he  places  him  before  us  reading  his  book, 
awakened  by  the  word.  Now  we  know  that  it  is 

*  often  God's  providence,  in  the  way  of  sickness,  the 
loss  of  friends,  earthly  disappointments,  the  voice 
and    discipline    of   pain    of    various    kinds,  that 
awakens  careless  men  in  the  first  place,  and  leads 
them  to  the  word  of  God ;    and  kind  and  gracious 
providences  are  always,  all  through  life,  all  through 
our  Christian  course,  combining  with  the  Word  and 
the  Spirit  of  God  to  help  us  on  our  pilgrimage,  and 
make  us  wary  in  it ;  but  in  general  it  is  the  word  of 

'      God,  in  some  form,  which  God  uses  as  the  instrument 

•  in  awakening  men,  as  well  as  in  converting  them. 
And  so  Bunyan,  with  heavenly  wisdom  and  truth, 
gives  us  the  first  picture  of  his  Pilgrim,  anxiously 
reading  the  word  of  God.     And  he  makes  the  first 
efficacious  motive  in  the  mind  of  this  Pilgrim,  a 

^L  salutary  fear  of  the  terrors  of  that  word,  a  sense  of 
the  wrath  to  come,  beneath  the  burden  of  sin  upon 
his  soul. 


AND    SLOUGH    OF    DESPOND.  223 

There  is  a  passage  so  beautiful,  in  the  pages  of  a 
great  writer,  on  this  very  point ;  that  it  might  have 
been  written  as  a  commentary  on  this  very  opening 
of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress,  and  I  shall  set  it  before 
you.     "  Awakened,"  says  Mr.  Coleridge,  "  by  the 
cock-crow  (a  sermon,  a  calamity,  a  sick  bed,  or  a 
providential  escape)  the  Christian  Pilgrim  sets  out 
in  the  morning  twilight,  while  yet  the  truth  is  below 
the  horizon.     Certain  necessary  consequences  of  his 
past  life  and  his  present  undertaking  will  be  seen  by 
the  refraction  of  its  light :  more  will  be  apprehended 
and  conjectured.     The  phantasms,  that  had  predo- 
minated during   the    hours   of  darkness,   are  still 
busy.     No  longer  present  as  Forms,  they  will  yet 
exist  as  moulding  and  formative  Motions  in  the  Pil- 
grim's soul.     The  Dream  of  the  past  night  will 
transfer  its  shapes  to  the  objects  in  the  distance, 
while  the  objects  give  outwardness  and  reality  to 
the  shapings  of  the  Dream.     The  fears  inspired  by 
long  habits  of  selfishness  and  self-seeking  cunning, 
though  now  purifying  into  that  fear  which  is  the 
beginning  of  wisdom,  and  ordained  to  be  our  guide 
and  safeguard,  till  the  sun  of  love,  the  perfect  law 
of  liberty,  is  fully  arisen — these  fears  will  set  the 
fancy  at  work,  and  haply,  for  a  time  transform  the 
mists  of  dim  and  imperfect  knowledge  into  deter- 
minate superstitions.     But  in  either  case,  whether 
seen    clearly    or  dimly,   whether   beheld    or   only 
imagined,  the   consequences  contemplated  in  their 
bearings    on   the   individual's  inherent    desire  of 
happiness  and  dread  of  pain  become  motives :  and 
(unless   all  distinction  in  the  words  be  done  away 
with,  and  either  prudence  or  virtue  be  reduced  to  a 


224  THE    CITY    OF    DESTRUCTION 

superfluous  synonyme,  a  redundancy  in  all  the 
languages  of  the  civilized  world,)  these  motives, 
and  the  acts  and  forbearances  directly  proceeding 
from  them,  fall  under  the  head  of  PRUDENCE,  as 
belonging  to  one  or  other  of  its  three  very  distinct 
species.  It  may  be  a  prudence,  that  stands  in 
opposition  to  a  higher  moral  life,  and  tends  to  pre- 
clude it,  and  to  prevent  the  soul  from  ever  arriving 
at  the  hatred  of  sin  for  its  own  exceeding  sinful- 
ness,  (Rom.  vii.  13  ;)  and  this  is  an  EVIL  PRUDENCE. 
Or  it  may  be  a  neutral  prudence,  not  incompatible 
with  spiritual  growth  :  and  to  this  we  may,  with 
especial  propriety,  apply  the  words  of  our  Lord, 
'  What  is  not  against  us  is  for  us.'  It  is  therefore 
an  innocent,  and  (being  such)  a  proper  and  COM- 
MENDABLE PRUDENCE. 

Or  it  may  lead  and  be  subservient  to  a  higher 
principle  than  itself.  The  mind  and  conscience 
of  the  individual  may  be  reconciled  to  it,  in  the 
foreknowledge  of  the  higher  principle,  and  with  a 
yearning  towards  it  that  implies  a  foretaste  of 
future  freedom.  The  enfeebled  convalescent  is 
reconciled  to  his  crutches,  and  thankfully  makes 
use  of  them,  not  only  because  they  are  necessary 
for  his  immediate  support,  but  likewise,  because 
they  are  the  means  and  condition  of  EXERCISE  ; 
and  by  exercise  of  establishing,  gradatim  paula- 
tim,  that  strength,  flexibility,  and  almost  sponta- 
neous obedience  of  the  muscles,  which  the  idea 
and  cheering  presentiment  of  health  hold  out  to 
him.  He  finds  their  value  in  their  present  ne- 
cessity, and  their  worth  as  they  are  the  instruments 
of  finally  superseding  it.  This  is  a  faithful,  a 


AND    SLOUGH    OF    DESPOND.  225 

WISE  PRUDENCE,  having  indeed  its  birth-place  in 
the  world,  and  the  wisdom  of  this  world  for  its 
father ;  but  naturalized  in  a  better  land,  and  having 
the  Wisdom  from  above  for  its  Sponsor  and  Spiri- 
tual Parent." 

The  Pilgrim  is  in  rags,  the  rags  of  depravity  and 
sin,  and  the  intolerable  burden  of  sin  is  bending 
him  down ;  but  the  book  is  in  his  hand,  and  his 
face  is  from  his  own  house.     Reading  and  ponder- 
ing, and  full  of  perplexity,  foreboding  and  a  sense 
of  sin,  gloom  and  wrath,  he  cries  out,  What  shall 
I  do!     This  is  his  first  exclamation.     He  has  not 
as  yet  advanced  so  far  as  to  say,  What  shall  I  do 
to  be  saved!  And  now  for  some  days  the  solemnity, 
and  burden,  and  distress  of  his  spirit  increases  ;  his 
unconverted  friends   see  that  he    is    "  becoming 
serious  ;"    they  think  it  is  some  distemper  of  the 
mind  or  animal  spirits  ;  they  hope  he  may  sleep  it 
away ;    they    chide,    neglect,  deride  him ;    carnal 
physic  for  a  sick  soul,  as  Bunyan   describes  it  in 
the  margin,  is  administered.    But  nothing  answers. 
The  sense  of  his  mortal  disease  and  danger,  the 
painful  sense   of  sin,  and  of  what  is  to  come  on 
account  of  it,  increases.     Not   even  his  wife  and 
sweet  babes  can  do  any  thing  for  him,  but  only 
add  to  his  misery  in   a  sense  of  their  danger  as 
well  as  his  own.     He  pities  and  prays  for  those 
who  deride  him,  and  spends  much  solitary  time  in 
reading  and  praying.     He  looks  this  way  and  that 
way,  as  if  he  would  run,   and  cries   out  in  the 
anguish  of  his  wounded  spirit,  What  shall  I  do  to 
be  saved  ?     This  is  the  first  stage  of  genuine  con- 
viction.    "  I  perceive  by  the  book  in  my  hand,  that 

29 


226  THE    CITY    OF    DESTRUCTION 

I  am  condemned  to  die,  and  after  that  to  come 
to  judgment ;  and  I  find  that  I  am  not  willing  to 
do  the  first  nor  able  to  do  the  second." 

And  now  he  meets  Evangelist,  who  gives  him 
the  parchment  roll,  Flee  from  the  wrath  to  come  !, 
It  is  a  godly  minister  of  Christ,  whom  the  Father 
of  mercies  has  sent  to  help  him.  Bunyan  has 
here  put  in  the  margin,  Conviction  of  the  neces- 
sity of  fleeing.  But  which  way  shall  I  fly  1  Then 
said  Evangelist,  pointing  with  his  finger  over  a 
very  wide  field,  Do  you  see  yonder  Wicket  Gate  I 
The  man  said,  No.  He  cannot  see  that  yet,  he  is 
in  such  darkness.  Then  said  the  other,  Do  you 
see  yonder  shining  light  1  Thy  word  is  as  a  lamp 
unto  my  feet,  and  a  light  unto  my  path.  He  said, 
I  think  I  do.  Then  said  Evangelist,  Keep  that 
light  in  your  eye,  and  go  up  directly  thereto, 
so  shalt  thou  see  the  gate  ;  at  which,  when  thou 
knockest,  it  shall  be  told  thee  what  thou  shalt 
do.  Bunyan  has  here  put  in  the  margin,  Christ, 
and  the  way  to  him  cannot  be  found  without  the 
Word.  So,  if  any  awakened  sinner  will  fill  his 
eye  with  that  light,  and  follow  it,  it  will  bring  him 
to  Christ. 

And  now  the  trembling  Pilgrim,  with  fixed  re- 
solution, having  a  glimpse  of  the  light,  and  a  definite 
direction,  begins  to  run;  it  is  an  unutterable  relief 
to  his  perplexities  to  run  towards  Christ ;  though 
as  yet  he  sees  him  not.  But  now  the  world  cla- 
mors after  him,  yea,  the  dearest  ones  in  it  try  to 
stop  him  ;  but  the  fire  in  his  conscience  is  stronger 
than  they ;  he  stops  his  ears,  and  runs  without 
looking  behind  him,  and  stays  not  in  all  the  plain, 


AND    SLOUGH    OF   DESPOND.  227 

but  runs  as  swiftly  as  his  burden  will  let  him,  crying, 
Life,  life,  eternal  life  ! 

And  now  he  is  fairly  set  out.  But  he  becomes 
a  gazing  stock  to  the  world,  and  some  of  them  set 
off  after  him  to  fetch  him  back.  There  is  no 
telling  the  wiles,  which  ungodly  ridiculing  com- 
panions have  sometimes  tried,  to  turn  their  awa- 
kened friends  from  the  way  of  life.  There  is  nothing 
can  stand  against  such  enemies,  but  a  resolute  pur- 
pose like  Christian's,  a  fire  in  the  conscience,  and  a 
fixedness  in  the  word  of  God.  These  things  will 
not,  indeed,  if  he  goes  no  farther,  make  a  man  a 
Christian  ;  but  these  things,  as  long  as  they  last, 
will  make  him  despise  the  world's  ridicule,  and  if 
he  runs  on,  he  will  soon,  by  God's  grace,  get  be- 
yond the  reach  of  ridicule,  beyond  all  worldly 
harm- 

Two  of  these  City  of  Destruction  men,  who  came 
to  bring  Christian  back,  Obstinate  and  Pliable,  are 
portraitures  of  classes.  They,  together  with 
Christian,  constitute  the  representatives  of  most 
of  the  hearers  of  the  Gospel,  and  of  the  manner 
in  which  they  receive  it ;  they  are  either  hardened 
against  it,  or  are  somewhat  softened  and  disposed 
to  set  out,  or  they  become  real  Pilgrims.  Obsti- 
nate, finding  Christian  was  not  to  be  moved, 
tried  to  persuade  Pliable  not  to  give  heed  to  him ; 
and  then  he  went  railing  back,  saying,  I  will  be 
no  companion  to  such  misled,  fantastical  fellows. 

And  now  Christian  and  Pliable  went  talking 
over  the  plain,  Christian  with  a  sense  of  sin  and  of 
the  terrors  of  the  Lord,  with  the  fire  in  his  con- 
science and  the  burden  on  his  back,  yet  something 


228  THE  CITY   OF    DESTRUCTION 

of  the  light  of  life  already  within  him,  arid  a  reso- 
lute purpose  never  to  give  over  seeking  Christ ; 
Pliable,  with  some  slight  superficial  sympathy  and 
conviction,  and  somewhat  moved  with  what  Chris- 
tian had  told  him  of  the  glories  of  the  heavenly 
inheritance  at  the  end  of  their  pilgrimage,  but  with 
no  sense  of  sin,  no  knowledge  of  his  own  heart,  no 
desire  after  Christ,  no  feeling  of  his  need  of  a 
Saviour.  In  their  talk,  Christian  speaks  really 
like  a  Christian  already,  though  he  is  not  one 
yet ;  and  certainly,  his  ravishing  descriptions  of 
the  things  that  are  to  be  enjoyed  in  heaven  are 
very  instructive,  as  showing  how  far  the  mind 
may  be  affected  with  a  merely  intellectual  and 
imaginative  sense  of  the  beauty  and  excellency  of 
the  Gospel,  and  the  glory  of  its  promises,  without 
regeneration.  Nevertheless,  it  must  be  remem- 
bered, that  where  a  work  of  grace  is  really  begun  in 
the  soul,  though  as  yet  it  may  not  have  gone  farther 
than  genuine  conviction  of  sin,  yet  the  sense  of 
divine  things  in  such  a  soul  is  very  different,  even 
before  regeneration,  from  the  views  of  the  man, 
whom  the  Spirit  of  God  is  not  beginning  to  teach. 
Moreover,  they  are  very  different  in  a  man  who 
has  been  accustomed  to  God's  word,  and  in  one 
who  has  not.  Pliable  begs  to  be  told  more  fully 
what  the  glorious  things  are,  and  how  to  be  enjoyed. 
So  Christian  goes  directly  to  his  book.  "  I  cannot 
describe  them,"  he  says  to  Pliable,  "  so  well  as  I 
can  conceive  them,  but  I  will  read  them  to  you  in 
my  book." 

And  now  you  see  the  difference  between  a  man 
who  has  been  educated  in  the  precious  belief  of  the 


AND    SLOUGH    OF    DESPOND.  229 

Gospel  as  the  word  of  God,  and  has  been  brought 
up  in  the  habit  of  reading  it,  and  the  man  who  has 
all  his  life  neglected  it,  and  is  a  stranger  to  it.  You 
may  see  what  a  faint  hold  the  Gospel  has  over  the 
one,  and  what  a  strong  hold  over  the  other.  Of 
these  two  men,  neither  of  them  as  yet  Christians, 
Pliable  is  doubtful,  Christian  is  as  firm  and  un- 
shaken as  a  rock.  Christian  also,  in  the  very 
sense  of  sin  within  him,  begins  to  have  an  irre- 
sistible proof  and  sense  of  the  truth  of  God's  word, 
of  which  Pliable,  without  any  such  inward  expe- 
rience and  conviction,  is  entirely  destitute.  "  I  will 
read  of  them  in  my  book,"  says  Christian.  "  And 
do  you  think,"  says  Pliable,  "  that  the  words  of 
your  book  are  certainly  true  1"  "  Yes,  verily,"  says 
Christian,  "for  it  was  made  by  him  that  cannot  lie." 
There  is  a  volume  in  those  touches  of  Bunyan's 
pencil.  What  sweet  simplicity  of  faith  already 
in  the  Pilgrim  !  True  ?  certainly  it  is  true  ;  for  it 
is  God's  word,  God  that  cannot  lie. 

Well  said,  answered  Pliable,  and  what  things 
are  they  1  There  is  an  endless  kingdom  to  be 
inhabited,  said  Christian,  and  everlasting  life  to 
be  given  us,  that  we  may  inhabit  that  kingdom 
forever.  Well  said,  answered  Pliable,  and  what 
else  ? 

Chr.  There  are  crowns  of  glory  to  be  given  us, 
and  garments  that  will  make  us  shine  like  the  sun 
in  the  firmament  of  heaven. 

Pli.  This  is  very  pleasant,  and  what  else  1 

Chr.  There  shall  be  no  more  crying  nor  sorrow  ; 
for  he  that  is  owner  of  the  place  will  wipe  all  tears 
from  our  eyes. 


230 


THE    CITY    OF    DESTRUCTION 


PL  And  what  company  shall  we  have  there  ? 

C/ir.  There  we  shall  be  with  Cherubim  and  Se- 
raphim, creatures  that  will  dazzle  your  eyes  to  look 
on  them.  There  also  you  shall  meet  with  thou- 
sands and  ten  thousands  that  have  gone  before  us 
to  that  place  ;  none  of  them  are  hurtful,  but  loving 
and  holy  ;  everyone  walking  in  the  sight  of  God,  and 
standing  in  his  presence  with  acceptance  forever.  In 
a  wor4,  there  we  shall  see  the  elders  with  their  gold- 
en crowns  ;  there  we  shall  see  the  holy  virgins  with 
their  golden  harps  ;  there  we  shall  see  men  that  by 
the  world  were  cut  in  pieces,  burnt  in  flames,  eaten 
of  beasts,  drowned  in  the  seas,  for  the  love  they 
bore  to  the  Lord  of  the  place  ;  all  well,  and  clothed 
with  immortality  as  with  a  garment. 

Pli.  The  hearing  of  this  is  enough  to  ravish 
one's  heart ;  but  are  these  things  to  be  enjoyed  ? 
How  shall  we  get  to  be  sharers  thereof? 

Ckr.  The  Lord,  the  governor  of  the  country, 
hath  recorded  that  in  his  book ;  the  substance  of 
which  is,  if  we  be  truly  willing  to  have  it,  he  will 
bestow  it  upon  us  freely. 

Pli.  Well,  my  good  companion,  glad  am  I  to 
hear  of  these  things ;  come  on,  let  us  mend  our 
pace. 

Here  you  have  another  volume  of  meaning  in  a 
single  touch  of  the  pencil.  Pliable  is  one  of  those 
who  are  willing,  or  think  they  are  willing,  to  have 
heaven,  but  without  any  sense  of  sin,  or  of  the  labor 
and  self-denial  necessary  to  enter  heaven.  But 
now  his  heart  is  momentarily  fired  with  Christian's 
ravishing  descriptions,  and  as  he  seems  to  have 
nothing  to  trouble  his  conscience,  and  no  difficul- 


AND    SLOUGH    OF    DESPOND. 

ties  to  overcome,  the  pace  of  an  honest,  thorough 
inquirer,  the  movement  of  a  soul  sensible  of  its 
distresses  and  its  sins,  and  desiring  comfort  only 
in  the  way  of  healing  and  of  holiness,  seems  much 
too  slow  for  him.  He  is  for  entering  heaven  at 
once,  going  much  faster  than  that  poor  Christian  can 
keep  up  with  him.  Then,  said  Christian,  I  cannot 
go  so  fast  as  I  would,  by  reason  of  this  burden  that 
is  on  my  back. . 

Of  poor  Christian's  burden  of  sin,  Pliable  was 
totally  ignorant,  and  doubtless  Christian  was  not  a 
little  grieved  within  himself,  to  see  how  lightly  Plia- 
ble could  step  forward,  while  it  was  with  much  ado 
that  he  could  take  step  after  step  beneath  that  great 
and  heavy  burden.  So  sometimes,  they  who  are  hear- 
tily and  conscientiously,  with  a  deep  sense  of  sin, 
seeking  after  Christ,  do  almost  look  with  envy  and  ^ 
much  surprise  upon  those  others,  who  seem  to  run 
with  so  little  difficulty,  and  sometimes,  moreover, 
seem  to  find  Christ  without  having  any  burden  to 
be  taken  off  by  him.  But  Christian  had  the  bur- 
den from  his  first  setting  out,  and  could  by  no 
means  be  rid  of  it. 

However,  Pliable's  eagerness  to  get  forward  did 
not  continue  a  great  while.  They  were  both  walk- 
ing somewhat  heedlessly  in  the  midst  of  their  talk, 
as  inquirers  are  very  apt  to  do,  when  they  converse 
more  than  they  pray,  and  missing  the  steps,  or 
taking  that  for  firm  ground  which  was  nothing  but 
mud,  they  both  fell  into  the  Slough  of  Despond. 
This  was  especially  sudden  and  unexpected  to  Pli- 
able, who  was  not  dreaming  of  difficulties,  and  it 
quenched  his  eagerness  at  once ;  and  although 


232  THE    CITY    OF    DESTRUCTION 

Christian  beneath  his  burden  was  sinking  far  deeper 
than  he,  yet  he  was  filled  with  rage  and  discou- 
ragement. Is  this  the  brave  country  you  told  me 
of?  You  may  have  it  all  to  yourself  for  me  ;  let 
me  but  get  out  with  my  life,  and  never  again  will  I 
set  out  on  a  pilgrimage. 

Now  it  is  not  always  that  the  Pliables  of  this 
world,  who  have  some  transitory  sympathy  towards 
heaven,  and  set  out  for  a  season  in  this  pilgrimage, 
get  so  immediately  tired,  and  turn  back  with  such 
open  rage  and  discouragement.  And  yet  this 
character,  it  is  a  most  melancholy  truth,  is  the 
representative  of  a  class  almost  innumerable. 
Almost  all  men  are  at  some  period  of  their  lives 
inclined  to  set  out  on  this  pilgrimage.  Under 
God's  Providence,  Word  and  Spirit,  it  cannot  be 
otherwise ;  for  men  do  and  will  feel  that  death  and 
the  judgment  are  before  them  ;  and  all  that  plea- 
sures and  business  and  cares  can  do,  they  cannot 
utterly  stifle  the  voice  of  conscience,  nor  the 
sense  of  sin,  God  and  eternity.  And  when  these 
fires  revive  a  little  in  the  soul,  and  burst  up  out 
of  the  thick  ashes,  then  men  begin  to  think  of 
this  pilgrimage,  then  they  begin  to  feel  that  they 
are  inhabiting  a  City  of  Destruction,  and  must  be 
getting  out  of  it ;  then  in  fact  they  do  often  set 
out  for  a  little  season,  but  not  having  much  sense 
of  sin,  nor  any  purpose  of  renouncing  it,  nor  any 
settled  resolution,  cost  what  it  may,  of  becoming 
the  disciples  of  Christ,  they  soon  become  wearied 
or  discouraged,  and  turn  back.  Alas  fur  them  ! 
Their  case  is  worse  when  they  get  back  to  the 
City  of  Destruction  than  it  was  even  while  they 


AND    SLOUGH    OF    DESPOND.  283 

were  tumbling  in  the  Slough  of  Despond.  A 
sense  of  shame  pursues  them  as  long  as  they 
live,  for  their  tergiversation.  Oftentimes  the  in- 
habitants of  that  city  do  at  first  as  stoutly  ridicule 
those  who  turn  back  as  those  who  set  out;  and 
oftentimes  you  will  find  those  who  have  turned 
back  become  the  loudest  in  their  ridicule  of  the 
whole  pilgrimage.  Alas !  the  world  is  full  of 
Pliables,  who  have  not  decision  enough,  in  the 
face  of  contempt,  trial  and  danger,  to  run  to- 
wards heaven  ;  and  yet  they  have  many  designs  of 
doing  so  ;  but  the  Word  in  their  hearts  is  among 
thorns ;  the  cares  and  pleasures  and  riches  of 
this  world,  the  lusts  of  other  things,  choke  the 
Word,  although  there  be  good  designs;  and  hence 
the  proverb,  that  hell  is  paved  with  good  in- 
tentions. 

Farewell,  then,  to  Pliable,  who  after  a  desperate 
struggle  or  two,  got  out  of  the  mire  on  that  side  of 
the  slough  that  was  nearest  his  own  house,  and  so 
Christian  saw  him  no  more  forever.  If  he  had  borne 
Christian's  burden,  at  first  setting  out,  that  is,  if  he 
had  had  an  awakened  conscience,  a  view  of  his 
guilt,  and  of  the  wrath  which  he  deserved,  and  had 
reason  to  dread  on  account  of  it,  not  forty  Sloughs 
of  Despond  would  have  turned  him  back,  nor  all 
the  ridicule  in  the  world  would  have  moved  him. 
And  you  see  in  the  case  of  these  two  men  how 
much  more  powerful  are  the  terrors  of  the  law  and 
a  sense  of  sin,  as  motives  in  an  unconverted  mind, 
than  any  mere  description  of  the  glories  of  heaven. 
That  is  good  in  its  place,  good  when  there  is  also 
a  sense  of  sin  to  accompany  it ;  and  as  in  the  case 

31 


234  THE    CITY    OF    DESTRUCTION 

of  Christian,  where  there  is  this  burden  on  the  soul, 
then  the  description  of  those  glories  will  have  an 
effect  deep  and  lasting,  while  in  the  case  of  one 
who  does  not  feel  that  burden,  does  not  see  and 
feel  his  guilt,  as  with  Pliable,  the  most  ravishing 
description  of  Heaven,  will  be  but  as  a  sweet  tune 
on  a  flute  flung  to  the  wind  and  forgotten  ;  it  will 
make  but  a  momentary  impression,  create  only  a 
transitory,  superficial  sympathy.  There  must  be 
the  preaching  of  the  law  and  a  law-work  in 
the  conscience,  before  men  are  likely  even  to  set 
out  resolutely  for  heaven,  and  without  this  law- 
work  they  do  almost  invariably  turn  back  ;  unless, 
indeed,  avoiding  the  Slough  of  Despond,  and  all 
the  difficulties  Christian  met  with,  they  take  up 
with  a  false  hope,  as  Ignorance  did,  and  make  a 
profession  of  religion ;  in  which  case  they  may, 
even  as  Ignorance,  hold  on  to  the  last,  and  even  at 
the  river  of  Death,  be  ferried  over  in  the  boat  of 
one  named  Self-Conceit,  not  to  find  out  their 
error,  till  on  coming  up  and  knocking  at  the 
gate,  and  crying,  Lord,  Lord,  open  unto  us,  the 
Lord  shall  answer,  I  never  knew  you. 

And  now  is  poor  Christian  left  to  struggle  alone  ; 
and  with  the  burden  on  his  back,  lamentable  indeed 
is  his  case  in  the  Slough  of  Despond.  And  here 
he  would  have  remained  and  died,  for  he  would 
struggle  in  no  direction  but  that  toward  the  Wicket 
Gate,  the  side  farthest  from  his  own  house,  had  not 
a  heavenly  helper  reached  forth  his  hand  to  draw 
him  out.  Some  men,  like  Pliable,  endeavor  to 
throw  off  their  convictions  of  sin,  by  returning  to 
worldly  pleasures,  getting  out  of  the  Slough  on  the 


AND    SLOUGH    OF    DESPOND.  235 

side  nearest  the  City  of  Destruction  \  this,  you  re- 
member, Bunyan  himself  did  at  one  time  ;  from  his 
convictions  he  returned  desperately  to  his  sports. 
But  the  resolute  Pilgrim,  once  fixed  toward  heaven, 
will  not  seek  to  be  rid  of  his  burden  in  any  way 
but  by  going  to  Christ ;  in  the  midst  of  his  dis- 
tressing convictions,  he  will  still  struggle,  as  Chris- 
tian did,  toward  the  side  farthest  from  the  City  of 
Destruction  ;  and  so  doing  he  will  find  help. 

In  this  Slough  of  Despond  there  were  good  and 
firm  steps,  sound  promises  to  stand  upon,  a  cause- 
way indeed,  better  than  adamant,  clear  across  the 
treacherous  quagmires  ;  but  mark  you,  fear  follow- 
ed Christian  so  hard,  that  he  fled  the  nearest  way, 
and  fell  in,  not  stopping  to  look  for  the  steps,  or 
not  thinking  of  them.  Now  this  is  often  just  the 
operation  of  fear  ;  it  sets  the  threatenings  against 
the  promises,  when  it  ought  simply  to  direct  the 
soul/r0rathe  threatenings,  to  the  promises.  That  is 
the  object  of  the  threatenings  to  make  the  pro- 
mises shine,  and  to  make  the  soul  lay  hold  upon 
them,  and  that  is  the  purpose  and  the  tendency  of 
a  salutary  fear  of  the  divine  wrath  on  account  of 
sin,  to  make  the  believer  flee  directly  to  the  pro- 
mises, and  advance  on  them  to  Christ.  But  in 
general,  men  under  conviction  of  sin,  having  more 
desire  to  escape  from  hell  than  to  get  to  Christ ; 
more  desire  to  be  relieved  of  their  distresses  than  to 
become  holy  ;  are  blinded  by  the  very  fears  which 
should  have  pointed  out  the  promises,  and  without 
looking  narrowly  for  those  steps,  they  struggle  for 
relief  rather  than  holiness,  for  comfort  rather  than 
Christ,  and  so  fall  deeper  into  difficulty.  Just  so 


236  THE    CITY    OF    DESTRUCTION 

in  all  applications  that  we  make  of  any  remedies 
but  the  Gospel ;  in  all  directions  that  we  go  for  re- 
lief but  just  to  Christ,  and  with  all  the  physicians 
we  can  have  without  him,  our  sickness  of  sin  and 
misery  never  grows  better,  but  rather  grows  worse. 
Flying  from  our  fears,  we  fly  only  into  greater  guilt 
and  fear,  if  we  do  not  flee  to  Christ.  Struggling 
to  be  rid  of  our  burden,  it  only  sinks  us  deeper  in 
the  mire,  if  we  do  not  rest  by  faith  upon  the  pro- 
mises, and  so  come  indeed,  to  Christ.  Precious 
promises  they  are,  and  so  free  and  full  of  forgive- 
ness and  eternal  life,  that  certainly  the  moment  a 
dying  soul  feels  its  guilt  and  misery,  that  soul  may 
lay  hold  upon  them,  and  find  Christ  in  them ;  and 
were  it  not  for  unbelief,  there  need  be  no  Slough  of 
Despond  for  the  soul  to  struggle  and  plunge  in  its 
mire  of  depravity. 

You  see,  said  the  dreamer's  teacher,  this  Slough  of 
Despond  is  a  dreadful  place,  because  unbelief  and 
sin  are  such  deep  and  dreadful  evils.  And  as  long 
as  unbelief  continues  it  cannot  be  mended  ;  for  still 
as  the  sinner  is  awakened  about  his  lost  condition, 
there  arise  in  his  soul  many  fears  arid  doubts,  and 
discouraging  apprehensions,  which  all  of  them  get 
together  and  settle  in  this  place  ;  and  this  is  the 
reason  of  the  badness  of  this  ground. 

It  is  not  the  pleasure  of  the  King  that  this  place 
should  remain  so  bad  :  his  laborers  also  have,  by 
the  direction  of  his  majesty's  surveyors,  been  above 
these  eighteen  hundred  years  employed  about  this 
patch  of  ground,  if  perhaps  it  might  have  been 
mended;  millions  of  cartloads  of  wholesome  in- 
structions have  been  swallowed  up  in  it,  that  have 


AND    SLOUGH    OF    DESi  O.M).  23? 

at  all  seasons  been  brought  from  all  places  of  the 
King's  dominions  ;  the  very  best  materials  to  make 
good  ground  of  the  place,  if  so  it  might  have  been 
mended  ;  but  it  is  the  Slough  of  Despond  still,  and 
so  will  be,  when  they  have  done  what  they  can. 
Nevertheless,  the  steps  are  there,  if  the  burdened 
and  terrified  Pilgrims  will  but  take  them ;  and  the 
ground  is  good,  when  they  are  once  got  in  at  the 
gate.  There  was  also  a  heavenly  Helper  for  poor 
Christian,  as  there  always  will  be  for  one  who  is 
humble  and  sincere,  even  though,  in  the  excess  of 
his  fear,  he  misses  the  steps,  and  seems  to  be  sink- 
ing to  destruction.  The  Lord  will  not  leave  him 
to  perish,  any  more  than  he  left  Peter,  because 
of  his  unbelief,  to  sink  to  the  bottom.  The  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  can  never  resist  that  outcry  of  the 
sinking  soul,  Lord,  save  me,  I  perish  ! 

And  now  you  may  think  perhaps  that  Christian 
having  got  out  of  the  Slough  of  Despond,  and 
fairly  on  his  way,  it  is  all  well  with  him  ;  but  not 
so,  for  now  he  comes  into  a  peril  that  is  far  greater 
than  the  last,  a  peril  through  which  we  suppose 
that  every  soul  that  ever  goes  on  pilgrimage  passes, 
and  a  peril  in  which  multitudes  that  get  safely 
across  the  Slough  of  Despond,  perish  forever.  For 
now  Christian  meets,  not  with  mud  and  mire,  but 
with  Mr.  Worldly  Wiseman,  from  the  great  town 
of  Carnal  Policy,  who  besets  and  way-lays  him  with 
another  gospel.  He  directs  him  to  a  famous 
preacher  of  that  gospel,  Mr.  Legality,  a  gentleman 
whose  parish  is  in  the  very  respectable  village  of 
Morality,  where  there  are  nice,  honest  and  amiable 
neighbors,  in  credit  and  good  fashion,  where  pro- 


238  THE    CITY    OF    DESTRUCTION 

vision  is  cheap  and  good,  where  there  are  houses 
that  stand  empty  to  be  had  at  a  very  reasonable 
rate,  where  Christian  can  get  good  and  comforta- 
ble garments,  and  withal  fashionable,  instead  of 
those  rags  that  he  has  on  his  back ;  where  also  he 
can  get  rid  of  his  burden,  for  Mr.  Legality  hath 
great  skill  to  take  off  the  Pilgrim's  burdens,  and 
also  to  cure  those  that  are  somewhat  crazed  in 
their  wits  on  account  of  them.  He  hath  also  a 
pretty  young  man  to  his  son,  Mr.  Civility,  who 
can  take  off  a  burden,  if  need  be,  as  well  as  the  old 
gentleman  ;  and  moreover,  to  this  very  respectable 
village  Christian  can  remove  his  wife  and  children, 
and  so  not  be  separated  from  them  ;  and  Mr. 
Worldly  Wiseman  would  have  him  do  this  by  all 
means,  and  so  not  go  back  to  the  City  of  Destruc- 
tion at  all. 

Now,  is  not  all  this  very  pleasant,  a  most  com- 
fortable prospect,  rather  than  to  forsake  all  that  he 
hath,  and  go  on  in  a  pilgrimage  began  with  so  many 
dangers'!  Here  you  see  that  Christian  need  no 
longer  be  in  fear  on  account  of  the  City  of  De- 
struction, for  the  town  of  Morality  would  keep  him 
safe,  even  if  that  Sodom,  which  Mr.  Worldly 
Wiseman  would  certainly  not  advise  him  any 
longer  to  live  in,  should  be  burned  up  with  fire  on 
account  of  the  sins  of  its  inhabitants.  Nevertheless, 
the  comfort  and  respectability  of  this  place  would 
not  have  tempted  Christian,  had  it  not  been  for  the 
advantage  which  Mr.  Worldly  Wiseman  had  over 
him,  because  of  his  great  desire  and  eagerness  to 
be  rid  of  his  burden.  The  very  first  thing,  when 
Mr.  Worldly  Wiseman  met  him,  and  asked  him 


AND    SLOUGH    OF    DESPOND.  239 

whither  he  was  going  after  this  burdened  manner, 
groaning  and  sighing  so  heavily,  Christian  made 
answer  that  he  was  going  to  get  rid  of  his  burden, 
and  for  that  purpose  was  going  to  the  Wicket  Gate. 
Now  see  the  advice  of  Mr.  Worldly  Wiseman,  and 
how  it  chimes  in  with  the  soul's  desire  for  comfort 
rather  than  holiness.  Christian  was  very  impatient 
to  get  rid  of  his  burden.  Well,  said  Mr.  Worldly 
Wiseman,  wilt  thou  hearken  to  me,  if  1  give  thee 
counsel  1  Certainly,  said  Christian,  I  stand  in 
great  need  of  good  counsel.  Well  then,  said  Mr. 
Worldly  Wiseman,  I  would  advise  thee  that  with 
all  speed  thou  get  rid  of  thy  burden  ;  for  thou  wilt 
never  be  settled  in  thy  mind  till  then ;  nor  canst 
thou  enjoy  the  benefit  of  the  blessings  which  God 
hath  bestowed  upon  thee  till  then. 

This  was  counsel  indeed !  Get  rid  of  thy  bur- 
den, get  rid  of  thy  burden !  This  is  the  amount 
of  the  teachings  of  morality,  this  the  perilous  voice 
of  all  teachers  that  do  not  point  the  sinner  to  Christ, 
and  his  atoning  sacrifice.  Get  rid  of  thy  burden, 
it  is  a  foolish  thing ;  secure  thy  comfort  by  going 
to  the  town  of  Morality,  and  placing  thyself  under 
the  pastoral  care  of  that  very  judicious  man  and  civil 
gentleman,  Mr.  Legality.  Evangelist  had  directed 
Christian  to  Christ ;  he  had  not  told  him  to  get  rid 
of  his  burden,  but  to  go  to  Christ,  and  Christ 
would  remove  it  in  good  time.  Now  that  was  good 
counsel,  all  the  counsel  that  Christian  needed  ;  but 
still  he  was  very  impatient  to  be  rid  of  his  burden, 
and  so  Mr.  Worldly  Wiseman's  counsels  pointed  to 
the  same  thing,  and  with  great  ingenuity  he  tried 
to  prejudice  Christian  against  Evangelist,  and  the 


240  THE    CITY    OF    DESTRUCTION 

strait  and  narrow  way.  Mr.  Worldly  Wiseman,  and 
all  his  connections,  dislike  the  atonement ;  the  Cross 
of  Christ  is  foolishness  unto  them,  except  to  make 
signs  with  it,  and  put  it  on  the  roofs  of  their  houses 
and  the  outside  of  their  churches.  In  all  likelihood 
Mr.  Legality's  own  chapel,  in  that  town  of  Morality, 
had  a  cross  on  the  top  of  it ;  for  so  do  men,  who  deny 
the  atonement,  cover  up  that  denial  by  mingling 
the  atonement  and  morality  together,  which  answers 
the  same  purpose  as  denying  it  utterly ;  for  if  a 
man  seeks  to  get  rid  of  his  burden  by  morality  in 
part,  he  dc  A  not  rest  on  the  atonement  at  all. 
And  just  so,  the  men  who  hate  the  great  truth  of 
justification  by  faith,  because  that  cuts  off  all 
worldly  pride,  and  kills  sin  arid  self  utterly,  will 
jften  not  avow  that  hatred  plainly,  but  say  that  men 
must  be  justified  by  faith  and  works  together; 
whereas,  it  is  the  blood  of  Christ  alone,  and  no 
works,  though  a  man  had  a  universe  full  of  them 
to  present  to  God,  that  can  cleanse  the  soul  from 
sin. 

However,  Mr.  Worldly  Wiseman  was  very  plump 
and  bold  in  his  condemnation  of  Evangelist  and 
his  doctrine.  "  Beshrew  him  for  his  counsel !  there 
is  not  a  more  dangerous  and  troublesome  way  in 
the  world,  than  is  that  into  which  he  hath  directed 
thee  ;  and  that  thou  shalt  find,  if  thou  wilt  be  ruled 
by  his  counsel.  Thou  hast  met  with  something, 
as  I  perceive,  already,  for  I  see  the  dirt  of  the 
Slough  of  Despond  is  upon  thee  ;  but  that  Slough 
is  the  beginning  of  the  sorrows  that  do  attend  those 
that  go  on  in  that  way.  Hear  me,  I  am  older  than 
thou ;  thou  art  like  to  meet  with  in  the  way  which 


AND    SLOUGH    OF    DESPOND.  241 

thou  goest,  weansomeness,  painfulness,  hunger, 
perils,  nakedness,  swords,  lions,  dragons,  darkness, 
and  in  a  word,  death  and  what  not.  These  things 
are  certainly  true,  having  been  confirmed  by  many 
testimonies.  And  should  a  man  so  carelessly  cast 
away  himself  by  giving  heed  to  a  stranger  ?" 

Mr.  Worldly  Wiseman  had  read  his  Bible  to 
some  purpose,  after  all,  for  he  almost  gives  Paul's 
exact  catalogue  of  the  evils  he  had  met  with  in  his 
pilgrimage.  But  Paul  said,  None  of  these  things 
move  me,  and  these  things  are  not  worthy  to  be 
compared  with  the  glory  that  shall  be  revealed. 
Mr.  Worldly  Wiseman  could  understand  the  cata- 
logue of  evils,  and  he  thought  to  frighten  Christian 
with  them  ;  but  he  could  not  understand  the  glory, 
and  he  had  not  calculated  the  power  of  genuine 
conviction  of  sin,  to  make  a  man  despise  death  itself 
for  the  sake  of  deliverance  from  it.  See  now,  says 
Bunyan  in  the  margin,  the  frame  of  the  heart  of 
a  young  Christian.  Why,  sir,  said  Christian,  this 
burden  upon  my  back  is  more  terrible  to  me  than 
are  all  those  things  which  you  have  mentioned; 
nay,  methinks  I  care  not  what  I  meet  with  in  the 
way,  if  so  be  I  can  also  meet  with  deliverance  from 
my  burden. 

How  earnest  thou  by  thy  burden  at  first  ? 

By  reading  this  book  in  my  hand,  said  Christian. 

And  now,  Mr.  Worldly  Wiseman  goes  further, 
and  shows,  as  Bunyan  says  in  the  margin,  that  he 
does  not  like  that  men  should  be  serious  in  reading 
the  Bible.  I  thought  so,  said  he,  and  it  is  happened 
unto  thee  as  to  other  weak  men,  who,  meddling 
with 'things  too  high  for  them,  do  suddenly  fall  into 

31 


242  THE  CITY    OF    DESTRUCTION 

thy  distractions  ;  which  distractions  do  not  only 
unman  men,  as  thine  I  perceive  have  done  thee, 
but  they  run  them  upon  desperate  ventures,  to 
obtain  they  know  not  what. 

This  conversation  of  Mr.  Worldly  Wiseman  is 
almost  the  exact  counterpart  of  the  dealings  of 
those  teachers  who  deny  the  Divinity  and  Atone- 
ment of  Christ,  and  the  truth  of  everlasting  pun- 
ishment. One  of  the  most  celebrated  of  those 
teachers  in  his  day  had  been  himself  in  early  life 
under  deep  conviction  of  sin,  had  set  out  from 
the  City  of  Destruction,  but  had  turned  into  the 
town  of  Morality,  and  established  himself  as  a 
preacher  there.  He  used  to  say  to  those  whom  he 
ever  saw  in  distress  on  account  of  Christian's  bur- 
den, or  Evangelist's  counsel,  I  have  been  that  way 
myself,  and  know  all  about  it ;  I  have  passed 
through  all  that  experience,  and  know  that  it  is  all 
nonsense.  These  distresses  on  account  of  sin  are 
pure  fanaticism,  they  are  unmanly  superstitions, 
which  pleasant  company,  exercise  and  recreation 
will  drive  away. 

Why  wilt  thou  seek  for  ease  this  way  of  the  Cross, 
said  Mr.  Worldly  Wiseman,  seeing  so  many  dangers 
attend  it,  especially  since,  hadst  thou  but  patience 
to  hear  me,  I  could  direct  thee  to  the  obtaining  of 
what  thou  desirest,  without  the  dangers  that  thou  in 
this  way  wilt  run  thyself  into  ;  yea,  and  the  remedy 
is  at  hand  ;  beside,  I  will  add  that  instead  of  these 
dangers  thou  shalt  meet  with  much  safety,  friend- 
ship and  content. 

Now  was  Christian  snared  by  these  counsels,  and 
taking  Mr  Worldly  Wiseman's  direction  to  Mr. 


AND    SLOUGH    OF    DESPOND.  243 

Legality's  house,  past  Mount  Sinai,  for  by  that  way 
he  must  go,  he  set  out.  But  behold,  when  he  was 
now  got  hard  by  the  hill,  it  seemed  so  high,  and  also 
that  side  of  it  that  was  next  the  wayside  did  hang 
so  much  over,  that  Christian  was  afraid  to  ^venture 
further,  lest  the  hill  should  fall  on  his  head ; 
wherefore,  then  he  stood  still,  and  wotted  not  what 
to  do.  Also,  his  burden  now  seemed  heavier  to  him 
than  while  he  was  in  his  way.  There  came  also 
flashes  of  fire  out  of  the  hill  that  made  Christian 
afraid  that  he  should  be  burnt ;  here  therefore  he 
did  sweat  and  quake  for  fear.  Poor  Christian  !  he 
could  not  get  past  Mount  Sinai  !  Nay,  happy 
Christian!  in  that  the  terrors  of  the  law  got  such 
hold  upon  him,  that  they  would  not  let  him  pass ; 
for  if  he  had  gone  by,  he  too,  like  many  thousand 
others,  would  have  gone  to  the  town  of  Morality, 
and  got  comfortably  settled  in  perdition.  He  would 
have  become  a  member  of  Mr.  Legality's  parish,  if 
he  could  have  £Ot  past  this  mountain.  But  here 
Evangelist  found  him,  half  dead  with  shame,  con- 
fusion and  terror.  And  here,  with  the  most  in- 
genuous simplicity  and  contrition,  Christian  made 
confession  of  his  guilt.  Yes,  dear  sir,  I  am  the 
man !  And  now  the  reproofs  and  instructions  of 
Evangelist  are  incomparably  beautiful,  and  Chris- 
tian, bemoaning  his  folly  and  sin  in  listening  to 
the  wicked  counsels  of  the  Deceiver,  applied  him- 
self again  to  Evangelist  in  words  and  sense  as 
follows  : — 

Sir,  what  think  you  ?  Is  there  any  hope  ? 
May  I  now  go  back,  and  go  up  to  the  Wicket 
Gate  I  Shall  I  not  be  abandoned  for  this,  and 


244  THE    CITY    OF    DESTRUCTION 

sent  back  from  thence  ashamed  ?  I  am  sorry  I 
have  harkened  to  this  man's  counsel  ;  but  may  my 
sin  be  forgiven  I 

The  mingling  of  reproof  and  encouragement  with 
which  Evangelist  comforted  the  penitent,  is  exqui- 
sitely wise  and  beautiful.  A  rare  pastor  Bunyan 
found  in  holy  Mr.  Gifford,  to  be  able  to  draw  so 
sweet  and  grave  a  character  from  real  life.  Evan- 
gelist kissed  him,  gave  him  one  smile,  arid  bid  him 
God  speed.  And  now  you  may  be  sure  there  was 
no  more  turning  of  Christian  out  of  the  way,  no 
more  inclination  after  Sinai,  or  Mr.  Legality,  or 
the  town  of  Morality,  not  though  a  hundred  world- 
ly wisernen  had  beset  him.  As  an  arrow  to  its 
mark,  he  went  straight  with  haste,  neither  spake 
he  to  any  man  by  the  way ;  nor  if  any  asked  him 
would  he  vouchsafe  them  an  answer.  This  expe- 
rience of  Sinai  was  enough  for  him,  nor  could  he 
think  himself  safe,  till  in  process  of  time  he  got  up 
to  the  gate.  There  he  knocked  with  trembling 
earnestness,  for  over  the  gate  was  written,  KNOCK, 

AND  II  SHALL  BE  OPENED  UNTO  YOU. 

May  I  now  enter  here,  said  Christian, 

May  I  now  enter  here  ?    Will  he  within 
Open  to  sorry  me,  though  I  have  been 
An  undeserving  rebel  ?    Then  shall  I 
Not  fail  to  sing  his  lasting  praise  on  high. 

Bunyan  has  put  in  the  margin,  the  gate  will  be 
open  to  broken-hearted  sinners  ;  and  so  it  was, 
and  Christian  went  in.  But  as  he  was  stepping  in, 
the  kind  Master  gave  him  a  sudden  pull,  at  which 
Christian  wondered  ;  but  he  was  told  that  at  a  little 
distance  from  the  gate  there  was  a  frowning  castle, 


The     Wicket    Gate. 


AND    SLOUGH    OF    DESPOND.  245 

under  command  of  Beelzebub,  from  whence  they 
shot  arrows  at  those  that  were  entering  the  gate, 
or  had  come  up  to  it,  if  haply  they  might  die  be- 
fore they  could  enter.  So  Christian  entered  with 
joy  and  trembling. 

This  undoubtedly  is  an  incident  drawn  from  Bun- 
yan's  own  experience ;  for  often  when  he  himself  was 
standing  at  mercy's  gate,  and  knocking  as  for  his  life 
for  entrance,  he  had  been  assaulted  by  these  fiends  ; 
when  he  was  praying,  then  especially  would  there 
sometimes  come  a  fiery  storm  of  the  darts  of  the 
Wicked  One,  so  that  often  he  thought  he  should 
have  died  indeed  beneath  them.  Doubtless  some- 
thing like  this  is  the  experience  of  all  who  come  up 
to  this  gate  ;  for  sometimes  the  point  of  greatest 
difficulty  and  danger  is  just  that  point  where  the 
soul  is  summoning  all  its  forces  to  come  to  Christ, 
or  where  it  is  just  about  sweetly  to  cast  itself  upon 
his  mercy ;  or  where  there  is  a  great  decisive 
struggle  at  the  Wicket  Gate,  between  good  and  evil 
in  the  soul,  and  where  the  perishing  sinner  is  just 
able  to  say,  Lord,  I  believe,  help  thou  mine  unbelief. 
All  moments  of  decision  are  moments  of  danger, 
and  when  Satan,  from  his  battlement,  sees  the  soul 
knocking  at  the  gate,  then  he  says  within  himself, 
It  is  my  last  hope ;  my  archers  must  destroy  him 
now  or  never.  And  so  sometimes  just  the  point  of 
inercy  is  the  point  of  greatest  strife  and  danger. 

A  characteristic  instructive  conversation  ensued 
between  Christian  and  the  Man  at  the  Gate,  in  the 
course  of  which,  Christian,  being  questioned,  told 
the  man  about  his  adventures  in  the  Slough  of 
Despond,  and  how  Pliable  had  left  him  :  and  here 


246  THE    CITY    OF    DESTRUCTION 

Bunyan  has  put  in  the  margin,  A  man  may  have  com- 
pany when  he  sets  out  for  heaven,  and  yet  go  thither 
alone ;  but  Christian  also  added,  with  sweet  inge- 
nuousness, that  he  was  quite  as  bad  as  Pliable,  for 
that  he  also  had  turned  aside  to  go  in  the  way  of 
death,  being  persuaded  thereto  by  the  carnal  argu- 
ments of  one  Mr.  Worldly  Wiseman.  The  Man  at 
the  gate  comforted  and  encouraged  him,  and  pointed 
out  the  strait  and  narrow  way  before  him,  so  that  he 
could  not  miss  it ;  and  now  Christian  was  about 
to  gird  up  his  loins,  and  address  himself  to  his 
journey,  but  oh  that  heavy  burden  !  Christian 
could  not  go  without  asking  to  be  rid  of  his  burden  ; 
so  kind  arid  skilful  a  man,  (thought  he,)  may  surely 
take  it  off,  and  I  am  sore  weary  with  it.  But  the 
answer  he  received  was  memorable.  As  to  thy  bur- 
den, be  content  to  bear  it,  until  thou  comest  to  the 
place  of  deliverance  ;  for  there  it  will  fall  from  thy 
back  of  itself.  Bunyan  has  here  put  in  the  margin, 
There  is  no  deliverance  from  the  guilt  and  burden 
of  sin,  but  by  the  death  and  blood  of  Christ. 

Now  there  is  a  vast  deal  of  instruction  and  com- 
fort in  this  last  incident.  Young  Christians  are 
very  apt  to  expect  entire  relief  from  all  their  bur- 
dens, and  a  complete  deliverance  from  sin,  the  mo- 
ment they  are  got  within  the  Wicket  Gate,  the  mo- 
ment they  have  come  to  Christ.  But  very  often 
this  expectation  is  not  realized,  and  then  they  faint 
and  become  disheartened,  or  filled  with  gloomy 
doubts  on  this  account.  Now  this  experience  of 
Christian  having  to  bear  his  burden  so  long,  and 
yet  going  on  so  patiently  with  it,  for  you  will  ob- 
serve, he  asked  nobody  after  this  to  take  off  his 


AND    SLOUGH    OF    DESPOND.  247 

burden,  is  very  instructive  and  encouraging.  The 
truth  is,  we  are  all  more  apt  to  be  seeking  for  com- 
fort, than  for  Christ ;  whereas  Christ  should  be  our 
first  object,  and  comfort  will  come  of  itself ;  Christ 
first,  and  all  things  else  shall  be  added. 

By  the  experience  of  Christian  and  Pliable  in 
their  commencement  of  this  pilgrimage  we  are 
taught  some  salutary  lessons,  as  first,  the  impor- 
tance of  a  deep  and  thorough  conviction  of  sin  at 
first  setting  out ;  second,  the  importance  of  a  reso- 
lute purpose  in  seeking  salvation,  so  as  not  to  be 
turned  back  ;  and  third,  the  importance  of  a  hearty 
reception  and  thorough  knowledge  of  God's  word. 
The  difficulties  that  Christian  meets  and  overcomes 
in  the  beginning,  do,  instead  of  discouraging  him, 
prepare  him  for  constancy  and  conquest  even  to  the 
end.  It  is  no  superficial  Christian  that  Bunyan  is 
describing,  but  a  man  of  God,  thoroughly  furnished 
unto  all  good  works  ;  a  soldier  clad  in  armor  of 
proof,  the  armor  of  righteousness  on  the  right  hand 
and  on  the  left.  He  needed,  as  we  shall  see,  a 
deep  and  thorough  discipline  from  the  beginning, 
in  order  to  prepare  him  for  the  fiery  ordeal  through 
which  he  was  to  pass. 

It  is  always  thus  that  God  deals  with  his  people  ; 
the  discipline  of  the  Christian  race  and  conflict  is 
such,  in  its  very  nature,  as  best  to  prepare  them 
for  usefulness  here,  and  for  their  place  in  glory  here- 
after. If  there  is  to  be  endurance  to  the  end, 
there  must  be  thoroughness  at  the  beginning;  if 
victory  at  the  end,  a  fight  at  the  beginning  ;  if  rest 
at  the  end,  a  burden  at  the  beginning.  There 
must  be  fires  to  consume  the  dross  here,  if  there  is 


248  THE    CITY    OF   DESTRUCTION. 

to  be  endless  brightness  and  purity  hereafter ;  self- 
denial  and  suffering  in  this  world  must  prepare  the 
way  to  glorify  God  and  enjoy  him  forever.  There 
was  a  great  connection  between  Christian's  burden 
at  first,  and  his  delight  in  God  afterwards  ;  so  there 
was  between  all  the  toils  of  his  pilgrimage,  and  his 
panting  desires  after  God  ;  for  certainly,  if  this 
pilgrimage  were  all  the  way  a  way  of  ease,  then  we 
should  not  much  desire  to  hasten  on  in  it,  or  to 
come  to  the  end  of  it,  or  to  see  God  in  heaven  ;  too 
much  satisfied  with  the  sweetness  of  the  streams, 
we  should  stay  away  from  the  fountain.  We  hav- 
ing here  no  continuing  city,  seek  one  to  come,  that 
city  which  hath  foundations,  whose  builder  and 
maker  is  God. 

Jerusalem,  Jerusalem, 

Would  God  I  were  with  thee ! 
Oh  that  my  sorrows  had  an  end, 

Thy  joys  that  I  might  see  ! 
Thy  walls  are  made  of  precious  stone, 

Thy  bulwarks  diamond  square  ; 
Thy  gates  are  made  of  orient  pearl ; 

O  God,  if  I  were  there ! 

O  happy  harbor  of  God's  saints ! 

O  sweet  and  pleasant  soil ! 
In  thee  no  sorrows  can  be  found, 

No  grief,  no  care,  no  toil. 
No  dimly  cloud  o'ershadows  thee, 

No  gloom  nor  darksome  night, 
But  every  soul  shines  as  the  sun, 

For  God  himself  gives  light 

Lord,  in  my  forehead  plant  thy  name, 

And  take  me  hence  away, 
That  I  may  dwell  with  thee  in  bliss, 

And  sing  thy  praise  for  aye. 
O  mother  dear,  Jerusalem ! 

When  shall  I  come  to  thee  1 
When  shall  my  sorrows  have  an  end  ! 

Thy  joys  when  shall  I  see  ? 

' 


CHRISTIAN 

I 

IN   THE 

HOUSE  OF  THE  INTERPRETER. 


Meaning  of  the  Interpreter,  what  great  personage  he  stands  for. — Richness  and  beauty 
of  his  instructions. — The  Law  and  the  Gospel  as  sweepers  of  the  soul. — Passion 
and  Patience,  Sense  and  Faith. — How  grace  is  sustained  in  the  soul. — How  the 
victory  is  gained  by  the  Man  in  armor.— Misery  of  the  soul  in  Despair.— 
Dream  of  the  Judgment. — Power  of  conscience. — Beauty  of  the  Pilgrim's  Pro- 
gress as  a  book  for  Childhood. — Christian's  deliverance  from  his  burden. 

IT  would  be  difficult  to  find  twelve  consecutive 
pages  in  the  English  language,  that  contain  such 
volumes  of  meaning,  in  such  beautiful  and  instruc- 
tive lessons,  with  such  heavenly  imagery,  in  so  pure 
and  sweet  a  style,  and  with  so  thrilling  an  appeal 
to  the  best  affections  of  the  heart,  as  these  pages 
descriptive  of  Christian's  sojourning  in  the  House 
of  the  Interpreter.  This  good  man  of  the  House, 
the  Interpreter,  we  are,  without  doubt,  to  take  as 
the  representative  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  with  his 
enlightening  and  sanctifying  influences  on  the 
heart.  He  is  our  Comforter,  Guardian  and  Guide 
through  all  our  pilgrimage  ;  our  Instructor  to  take 
of  the  things  which  are  Christ's,  and  to  show  them 
to  our  souls ;  our  Sanctifier,  to  lead  us  into  all 
truth,  and  to  make  it  the  nourishing  food  of  our 
souls,  and  with  it  and  in  it  bringing  Christ  before 
us  continually,  to  fasten  our  affections  upon  him, 
32 


250  CHRISTIAN    IN    THE 

and  make  him,  of  God,  unto  us,  our  wisdom, 
righteousness,  sanctification  and  redemption.  From 
the  first  moment  of  a  Christian's  setting  out  on 
his  pilgrimage,  this  heavenly  Comforter  takes  him 
under  his  peculiar  guidance  ;  so  soon  as  he  en- 
ters the  Strait  Gate,  and  puts  himself  under  the 
care  of  the  Great  Shepherd,  then  the  Spirit  of 
God  begins  the  work  of  discipline,  instruction, 
refinement  and  sanctification  with  him  as  a  child 
of  God.  So  you  will  observe  that  the  very  first 
thing  which  the  Interpreter  said  to  Christian  was, 
Come  in,  and  I  will  show  thee  that  which  will 
be  profitable  unto  thee.  And  then  he  bid  his 
man  light  the  candle,  and  brought  Christian  into  a 
private  room,  where  he  showed  him  the  first  of  the 
beautiful  and  instructive  visions  that  were  to  pass 
before  him.  Bunyan  has  put  in  the  margin  the 
word  Illumination,  and  he  might  have  added  the 
text,  Open  thou  mine  eyes  that  I  may  behold  won- 
drous things  out  of  thy  law.  Or  he  might  have 
referred  us  to  the  blessed  walk  of  the  two  disci- 
ples with  Christ  in  the  way  to  Emmaus,  when  he 
opened  their  understandings,  that  they  might  un- 
derstand the  Scriptures  ;  for  such  a  work  does  the 
Spirit  of  God  commence  with  us,  when  he  lights 
the  candle  of  the  Lord  within  our  hearts. 

But  we  are  to  observe  that  Christian  did  not  get 
into  the  house  of  the  Interpreter,  nor  obtain  his 
precious  guidance,  without  knocking,  yea,  and  that 
earnestly.  This  is  to  signify  that  after  Christ  has 
let  us  in,  as  we  hope,  at  the  Wicket  Gate,  our  great 
and  immediate  work  must  be  to  seek  with  most 
humble  diligence  and  earnestness  the  gracious  illu- 


HOUSE    OF   THE    INTERPRETER.  251 

urinating  and  sanctifying  influences  of  his  Spirit. 
In  our  first,  ignorance  and  darkness  how  greatly 
they  are  needed  no  language  can  tell.  The  young 
convert  will  make  but  a  poor  soldier  of  Jesus 
Christ,  but  a  weak  and  lagging  pilgrim,  if  he  does 
not  go  directly  to  the  House  of  the  Interpreter.  Ah, 
what  earnest  prayer  is  needed,  that  the  soul,  having 
come  to  Christ,  may  be  filled  with  the  Spirit,  be 
rooted  and  grounded  in  love,  and  built  up  in  him, 
and  prepared  to  show  forth  his  praises.  Be  assured 
that  the  immediate  time  which  passes  after  a  soul's 
conversion  is  of  indescribable  importance  for  all 
after  life.  If  it  be  passed  in  the  House  of  the 
Interpreter,  and  under  his  divine  instruction,  if 
the  soul  is  much  in  prayer  for  divine  grace  and 
illumination,  then  will  there  be  a  rich  and  precious 
preparation  for  a  joyful  and  triumphant  pilgrimage, 
in  which  the  path  of  the  soul  shall  be  as  a  shining 
light,  that  shineth  more  and  more  unto  the  perfect 
day.  But  if  joy  comes  first,  without  the  instruc- 
tion and  discipline  of  the  Interpreter,  then  will 
there  be  trouble  afterwards,  a  great  many  falls  by 
the  way,  a  great  many  Hill  Difficulties,  and  perhaps 
a  great  many  weeks  instead  of  days  passed  in 
the  Castle  of  Giant  Despair.  When  a  soul  first 
comes  to  Christ,  then  for  many  days  it  ought  to 
abide  with  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  when  this  is  done, 
who  shall  sky  how  many  sights  of  glory  may  be 
seen,  how  many  rich  and  refining  experiences  be 
enjoyed ;  how  rapidly  the  soul  may  grow,  and  be 
transfigured,  as  it  were,  with  the  influences  of 
divine  truth,  while  thus  it  is  alone  with  God  ;  how 
it  may  be  knit  and  strengthened  for  all  future  toils 


252  CHRISTIAN    IN    THE 

and  combats,  and  prepared  to  go  through  the  world 
almost  as  a  seraph  of  light,  prepared  at  any  rate, 
like  Paul,  so  to  run  not  as  uncertainly,  so  to  fight 
not  as  one  that  beateth  the  air. 

The  first  sight  which  Christian  saw  was  a 
"  brave  picture,"  an  exquisite  portrait  of  a  grave 
and  saintly  man,  who  had  his  eyes  lifted  up  to 
Heaven,  the  best  of  books  in  his  hand,  the  Law 
of  Truth  was  written  upon  his  lips,  the  world  was 
behind  his  back  ;  it  stood  as  if  it  pleaded  with  men, 
and  a  crown  of  gold  did  hang  over  its  head.  And 
whose  portrait  is  Bunyan  describing  here  1  Again, 
we  think  he  had  only  Mr.  GifFord  in  his  eye  as  a 
faithful  minister  of  Christ ;  bat  Bunyan  too  had 
been  the  pleader  with  men,  and  over  his  own 
head  the  crown  of  gold  was  shining,  and  while  he 
wrote  these  words  you  may  be  sure  that  his  spirit 
thrilled  within  him  as  he  said,  And  I  too  am  a 
minister  of  Jesus  Christ !  This  picture  was  shown 
by  the  Interpreter  to  Christian,  in  order  that  he 
might  know  the  true  from  the  false  guide  in  the 
way  to  the  City  of  Immanuel. 

The  next  scene,  which  the  Interpreter  showed 
Christian,  went,  you  may  be  sure,  to  his  heart ;  for 
it  displayed  the  inward  corruptions  of  the  soul,  and 
the  different  effects,  first  of  the  Law  and  afterwards 
of  the  Gospel  upon  them ;  and  Christian,  it  must 
be  remembered,  had  not  yet  got  rid  of  his  burden  of 
sin,  and  had  in  his  mind  in  great  freshness  the 
terrors  of  Sinai  in  the  way  to  Mr,  Legality's  house, 
and  his  distressing  experience  in  the  Slough  of 
Despond,  besides  his  deep  convictions  of  sin  and 
wrath  in  the  City  of  Destruction.  He  had  known 


HOUSE    OF    THE    INTERPRETER.  253 

most  thoroughly  what  the  Law  could  do  with  a  bur- 
dened conscience  ;  he  had  but  begun  to  know  what 
grace  could  do  to  ease  it.  The  Interpreter  carried 
him  into  a  larger  parlor  whereof  the  floor  was  thick 
with  dust,  because  it  had  never  been  swept.  So 
the  moment  a  man  began  to  sweep  it,  the  dust  flew 
about  in  such  clouds  that  Christian  was  well  nigh 
stifled  ;  but  so  soon  as  a  damsel  was  called  to 
sprinkle  the  room  with  water,  then  it  was  swept 
and  cleansed  easily. 

The  sweeper  was  the  Law,  stirring  up  the  cor- 
ruptions in  the  parlor  of  the  heart ;  trying  to  sweep 
them,  but  only  stirring  them  up,  and  raising  a  suf- 
focating cloud  in  the  atmosphere.  This  is  the 
work  of  the  Law  in  the  conscience,  to  reveal  sin,  to 
make  the  sinner  sensible  of  it ;  and  this  is  all  that 
the  Law  can  do  ;  it  can  only  convince  and  condemn, 
for  we  have  broken  every  one  of  its  precepts,  and 
the  more  its  light  shines  in  upon  the  soul,  the  more 
manifest  our  iniquities  become.  If  we  strive  to 
keep  it  and  so  to  gain  peace,  we  may  keep  it  in  some 
points  outwardly,  but  inwardly  we  break  it ;  we  are 
defiled  in  every  part,  and  our  very  morality  con- 
demns us,  as  not  springing  from  the  love  of  God. 
The  voice  of  the  law  is,  The  soul  that  sinneth  it 
shall  die,  and  he  that  offendeth  in  one  point  is  guilty 
of  all ;  and  what  a  broom  this  is  to  introduce  into 
the  heart  to  sweep  it  of  its  sins,  you  may  well  judge  ; 
every  movement  of  it  is  as  the  besom  of  destruc- 
tion ;  it  is  indeed  condemnation  and  death  perpetu- 
ally. The  Law  is  holy,  and  just,  and  good  ;  but  its 
very  holiness  and  goodness,  laid  along  side  with 
our  depravity,  make  the  revelation  within  us  ap- 


254  CHRISTIAN    IN    THE 

pear  like  the  uncovering  of  hell ;  it  fills  us  with  an- 
guish and  terror  in  the  sight  of  what  we  are,  and 
what  we  deserve. 

Christian  well  knew  this  in  his  own  deep  experi- 
ence ;  for  the  burden  of  sin  was  on  him  still,  and 
sorely  did  he  feel  it  while  the  Interpreter  was 
making  this  explanation ;  and  had  it  not  been  for 
his  remembrance  of  the  warning  of  the  Man  at  the 
Gate,  he  would  certainly  have  besought  the  Inter- 
preter to  take  off  his  burden.  The  Law  could 
not  take  it  off;  he  had  tried  that;  and  grace  had 
not  yet  removed  it,  so  he  was  forced  to  be  quiet 
and  to  wait  patiently.  But  when  the  Damsel  came 
and  sprinkled  the  floor  and  laid  the  dust,  and  then 
the  parlour  was  swept  so  easily,  there  were  the  sweet 
influences  of  the  Gospel  imaged,  there  was  divine 
grace  distilling  as  the  dew,  there  was  the  gentle 
voice  of  Christ  hushing  the  storm  ;  there  were  the 
corruptions  of  the  heart,  which  the  Law  had  but 
roused  into  action,  yielding  under  the  power  of 
Christ,  and  there  was  the  soul  made  clean  and  fit 
for  the  King  of  Glory  to  inhabit.  Indeed  this  was 
a  most  instructive  emblem.  Oh  that  my  heart 
might  be  thus  cleansed,  thought  Christian,  and  then 
I  verily  believe  I  could  bear  my  burden  with  great 
ease  to  the  end  of  my  pilgrimage,  but  I  have  had 
enough  of  that  fierce  Sweeper,  the  Law.  The  Lord 
deliver  me  from  his  besom ! 

The  next  emblem  was  Passion  and  Patience, 
two  little  children,  the  very  reverse  in  their  cha- 
racters, one  of  whom  would  have  every  thing  now, 
the  other  would  quietly  wait.  So  Passion  had  his 
desire  and  Christian  looked  and  saw  him  with  a 


HOUSE    OF    THE    INTERPRETER.  255 

bag  of  treasure  exulting  over  Patience  and  laugh- 
ing him  to  scorn,  but  Patience  sat  still,  and  an- 
swered nothing.  So  Christian  looked  again,  and 
behold  Passion  had  lavished  all  his  treasure  in  a 
moment,  and  now  had  nothing  but  rags.  This  was 
a  vivid  and  striking  emblem,  and  one  which  in  its 
general  meaning  a  child  could  understand.  Pas- 
sion stands  for  the  men  of  this  world,  Patience  of 
that  which  is  to  come  ;  Passion  for  those  who  will 
have  all  their  good  things  now,  Patience  for  those 
who  are  willing  with  self-denial  to  wait  for  some- 
thing better  ;  Passion  for  those  who  are  absorbed 
in  temporal  trifles,  Patience  for  those  whose  hearts 
are  fixed  upon  eternal  realities  ;  Passion  the  things 
which  are  seen,  and  the  impatient  eagerness  with 
which  they  are  followed,  Patience  the  things  which 
are  unseen,  and  the  faith,  humility,  and  deadness 
to  the  world  exercised  in  order  to  enjoy  them.  Be- 
sides, Passion  shows  the  scorn  of  Patience  by  pros- 
perous men  of  this  world  in  their  bravery,  Patience 
shows  the  gentle  forbearance  and  endurance,  which 
the  love  of  Christ,  and  the  promise  of  eternal  glory, 
do,  by  divine  grace,  enable  the  soul  even  of  a  per- 
secuted Christian  to  exercise. 

This  beautiful  passage  is  a  good  commentary  on 
the  seventy-third  Psalm;  it  is  good  for  those  to 
read  and  meditate  upon,  who  are  at  any  time  en- 
vious at  the  foolish,  when  they  see  the  prosperity 
of  the  wicked  ;  and  there  are  times  when  the  best 
of  men  fall  into  such  a  vein  of  murmuring  and 
repining;  they  become  foolish  and  ignorant,  and 
as  a  beast  before  God,  losing  all  sight  and  sense 
of  eternal  realities  for  a  season,  when  they  get  to 


256  CHRISTIAN    AT  THE 

admiring  the  ungodly,  who  prosper  in  the  world, 
who  increase  in  riches.  Ah,  let  them  remember 
how  as  a  dream  when  one  awaketh,  so  the  trea- 
sures and  enjoyments  of  Passion  are  gone,  and 
there  is  left  nothing  but  rags  and  wretchedness. 
And  let  them  remember  those  three  sweet  verses, 
which  contain  the  very  material  out  of  which  so 
gentle,  yet  noble  a  creature  as  Patience  was  made, 
and  the  very  fire  that  as  a  flame  of  blessedness 
before  hand  was  burning  in  his  heart,  and  making 
him  care  nothing  at  all  for  the  braveries  of  Pas- 
sion ;  "  Thou  shalt  guide  me  with  thy  counsel,  and 
afterward  receive  me  to  glory.  Whom  have  I  in 
heaven  but  thee,  and  there  is  none  upon  earth  that 
I  desire  besides  thee.  My  flesh  and  my  heart  fail- 
eth,  but  God  is  the  strength  of  my  heart,  and  my 
portion  forever." 

It  were  well  also  to  read  along  with  this  the  ac- 
count of  Dives  and  Lazarus,  of  which  again  this 
emblem  of  Passion  and  Patience  is  a  perfect  repre- 
sentation. Dives  was  Passion,  who  would  have  all 
his  good  things  in  this  life,  and  even  doubted  whe- 
ther there  was  any  life  to  come  at  all ;  at  any  rate, 
he  would  not  be  such  a  melancholy  fool  as  to  wait 
for  it.  Lazarus  was  Patience,  who  could  not  only 
wait,  saying  within  himself,  By  and  by  it  will  be  all 
right,  and  the  crown  of  gold  will  keep  its  bright- 
ness forever,  but  he  could  wait  at  the  gate  of  the 
rich  man  full  of  sores,  and  yet  singing  and  making 
melody  in  his  heart  unto  the  Lord,  and  thinking 
of  the  angels  and  of  Abraham's  bosom.  And  then 
the  end,  the  eternal  separation,  the  gulf  of  flame 
and  the  abode  of  glory !  Son,  said  Abraham, 


HOUSE    OF    THE    INTERPRETER.  257 

remember  that  thou  in  thy  life-time  receivedst  thy 
good  things,    and  likewise   Lazarus  evil  things  ; 
and  now,  he  is  comforted,  and  thou  art  tormented. 
So  the  world  goes  !     Passion  says,  A   bird  in 
the  hand  is  worth  two  in  the  bush  ;  give  me  good 
fortunes  now,  and   you    may  have  all   your   fine 
texts  of  Scripture,  and  all  your  glory  in  the  world 
to  come  to  yourself.     Patience  says,  Wait  a  little, 
all  is  not  gold  that  glitters,  and  a  little  that  a  right- 
eous man  hath,  is  better  than  the  riches  of  many 
wicked.     Passion   says,  Father,   give  me  the  por- 
tion of  goods  that  belongeth  to  me  ;  he  will  have 
them  now,  and  he  claims  them  as  his  right,  and 
being  indulged  with  them,  away  he  goes  and  spends 
them  to  his  own  ruin ;  and  then  well  for  him  it  is, 
if  amidst   his  rags    and   wretchedness  his  heart 
turns    again   to   his   father's   house,  and  by   the 
infinite  mercy  of  divine  grace  he  comes  back  as  a 
lamenting,  penitent,  heart-broken  Prodigal.     Ah, 
thought  Christian  to  himself,  I  was  Passion  once, 
Passion  in  the  City  of  Destruction ;  and  I  should 
have   been    Passion    still,    Passion    in    rags    and 
wretchedness,  had  not   God  had    mercy  on   me. 
Now  I  will  be  Patience  as  long  as  I  live. 

The  next  bright  instructive  vision  that  the  Inter- 
preter showed  Christian,  is  one  that  sprung  directly 
from  Bunyan's  own  course  of  painful  and  blessed 
experience,  mingled  together.  The  Dreamer  now 
is  looking  back  and  musing  on  the  wonderful 
discipline  of  Divine  Grace  in  his  heart,  and  he 
says  within  himself,  How  marvellously,  amidst  all 
my  terrible  temptations,  did  my  Divine  Saviour, 
when  I  saw  him  not,  and  feared  I  never  should  see 

33 


258  CHRISTIAN    AT    THE 

him,  maintain  his  blessed,  precious  work  of  mercy 
in  my  heart !  He  has  brought  the  blind  by  a  way 
that  they  knew  not ;  but  now,  blessed  be  God,  how 
sweetly  do  I  see  it !  When  my  spirit  was  over- 
whelmed within  me,  then  thou  knewest  my  path. 
"  I  saw  in  my  dream,"  says  Bunyan,  "  that  the 
Interpreter  took  Christian  by  the  hand,  and  led  him 
into  a  place,  where  was  a  fire  burning  against  a 
wall,  and  one  standing  by  it,  always  casting  much 
water  upon  it  to  quench  it ;  yet  did  the  fire  burn 
higher  and  hotter."  You  will  remember  the  sar- 
castic dialogue  of  the  Tempter,  the  devil,  with 
Bunyan's  soul,  when  he  had  him  near  the  en- 
crance  to  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death,  and 
«vas  torturing  him  with  dreadful  doubts  and  appre- 
aensions.  I  v/ill  cool  you  yet,  said  Satan,  though 
I  take  sever  years  to  do  it ;  you  are  very  hot 
dfter  mercy  now,  but  you  shall  be  cool  enough  by 
ind  by.  And  with  what  malignant  wonder  and 
lisappointment  must  Satan  have  looked  on  to  see 
ill  his  efforts  bootless,  to  see  that  the  flame  of  love 
4n  Bunyan's  heart  was  like  the  fire  of  guilt  and  de- 
spair in  Satan's  own  conscience,  unquenchable  ;  to 
see,  amidst  all  the  torrents  of  rain  and  hail,  that  he 
poured  upon  the  soul  of  his  apparently  helpless 
victim,  the  fire  of  grace,  to  his  utter  desperation 
and  astonishment,  did  only  burn  higher  and  clearer, 
and  brighter  !  Ah,  the  blind  and  guilty  Fiend 
could  not  see  the  chariots  and  horsemen  of  heaven 
round  about  Bunyan ;  he  could  not  see  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  continually  pouring  the  oil  of  divine 
grace  into  Bunyan's  heart,  of  which  the  Inter- 
preter showed  Christian  the  emblem  in  the  man 


HOUSE    OF    THE    INTERPRETER.  259 

on  the  other  side  secretly  but  continually  pouring 
oil  from  a  vessel  into  the  fire. 

So,  said  the  Interpreter,  by  means  of  the  oil  of 
Christ's  grace,  notwithstanding  what  the  devil  can 
do,  the  souls  of  his  people  prove  gracious  still. 
And  in  that  thou  sawest  that  the  man  stood  be- 
hind the  wall  to  maintain  the  fire,  this  is  to  teach 
thee  that  it  is  hard  for  the  tempted  to  see  how  this 
work  of  grace  is  maintained  in  the  soul.  My  grace 
is  sufficient  for  thee,  for  my  strength  is  made  per- 
fect in  weakness.  Bunyan  had  had  deep  experience 
of  the  glory  of  this  promise,  for  it  was  the  passage 
of  grace  which  did  long  strive  with  that  of  Esau, 
till  at  length  the  dreadful  threatening  grew  dim 
and  vanished  away,  while  the  promise  grew  brighter 
and  brighter,  till  it  filled  his  whole  soul  with  its 
glory ;  till  the  Law  had  to  give  place  to  the 
Gospel,  and  Moses  and  Elias  to  leave  Christ  and 
his  saints  alone.  Bunyan  has  put  this  sweet 
promise  in  a  reference  in  the  margin;  and  here  I 
may  remark  that  as  you  pass  along  in  the  Pil- 
grim's Progress,  if  you  will  take  the  trouble  to 
turn  to  your  Bibles  for  references,  you  may  see 
the  very  sources  of  the  wisdom  and  inspiration  of 
Bunyan's  genius,  the  very  channels  through  which 
the  River  of  the  Water  of  Life  flowed  in  so  many 
thousand  deep  beautiful  rills  into  these  pages. 
The  examination  in  such  wise  proves  far  more 
instructive. 

The  next  sight,  which  the  Interpreter  showed 
Christian,  is  in  many  respects  the  most  animating 
and  ravishing  passage  to  be  found  in  all  the  Pil- 
grim's Progress.  It  set  Christian's  own  heart  on 


260  CHRISTIAN    AT    THE 

fire  to  run  forward  on  his  journey.  Those  who 
have  read  this  book  in  early  childhood,  can  well 
remember  the  powerful  effect  which  this  picture 
had  upon  the  imagination.  The  Interpreter  took 
Christian  by  the  hand,  and  led  him  into  a  pleasant 
place,  where  was  built  a  stately  palace,  beautiful 
to  behold  ;  at  the  sight  of  which  Christian  was 
greatly  delighted ;  he  saw  also  upon  the  top 
thereof  certain  persons  walking,  who  were  clothed 
all  in  gold.  So  the  Interpreter  took  Christian, 
and  led  him  up  towards  the  door  of  the  palace ;  and 
behold,  at  the  door  stood  a  great  company  of  men, 
as  desirous  to  go  in,  but  durst  not.  There  also  sat 
a  man  at  a  little  distance  from  the  door,  at  a  table- 
side,  with  a  book  and  his  ink-horn  before  him,  to 
take  the  names  of  them  that  should  enter  therein; 
he  saw  also  that  in  the  door- way  stood  many  men 
in  armour  to  keep  it,  being  resolved  to  do  to 
the  men  that  would  enter,  what  hurt  and  mis- 
chief they  could.  Now  was  Christian  somewhat 
in  amaze :  at  last,  when  every  man  started  back 
for  fear  of  the  armed  men,  Christian  saw  a  man  of 
a  very  stout  countenance  come  up  to  the  man  that 
sat  there  to  write,  saying,  set  down  my  name,  sir  ; 
the  which  when  he  had  done,  he  saw  the  man  draw 
his  sword,  and  put  a  helmet  upon  his  head,  and 
rush  towards  the  door  upon  the  armed  men,  who, 
laid  upon  him  with  deadly  force  ;  but  the  man,  not 
at  all  discouraged,  fell  to  cutting  and  hacking 
most  fiercely.  80,  after  he  had  received  and 
given  many  wounds  to  those  who  attempted  to 
keep  him  out,  he  cut  his  way  through  them  all,  and 
pressed  forward  into  the  palace ;  at  which  there 


HOUSE    OF    THE    INTERPRETER.  261 

was  a  pleasant  voice  heard  from  those  that  were 
within,  even  of  those  that  walked  upon  the  top 
of  the  palace,  saying, 

Come  in,  Come  in, 
Eternal  glory  thou  shall  win ! 

So  he  went  in,  and  was  clothed  with  such  gar- 
ments as  they.  Then  Christian  smiled  and  said,  I 
think  verily  I  know  the  meaning  of  this. 

Verily  thou  didst,  noble  Christian  !  And  who 
is  there  *tnat  does  not  know  the  meaning  of  it, 
and  what  heart  so  cold  as  not  to  be  ravished  by  it! 
Yea,  we  should  think  that  this  passage  alone 
might  set  any  man  out  on  this  pilgrimage,  might 
bring  many  a  careless  traveller  up  to  the  gate  of 
this  glorious  palace  to  say,  Set  down  my  name, 
sir !  How  full  of  instruction  is  this  passage  ! 
What  mingled  encouragement  and  warning  did 
it  convey  to  Christian's  mind  to  prepare  him  for 
the  many  trials  before  him.  It  was  necessary 
that  the  Holy  Spirit  should  show  him  in  some 
measure  what  he  would  have  to  encounter,  should 
make  him  feel  that  if  he  gained  heaven,  it  must 
be  by  a  great  conflict  and  a  great  victory.  Mr. 
Worldly  Wiseman  had  predicted  some  of  the 
dangers  he  was  to  meet  with  ;  but  Mr.  Worldly 
Wiseman  could  have  no  conception  of  the  ex- 
ceeding weight  of  glory  that  was  to  follow ;  but 
here  the  vision  of  the  glory  follows  so  close  upon 
the  sight  of  the  conflict,  that  the  conflict  even  adds 
to  its  charms,  and  makes  it  a  thousand  times  the 
more  exciting.  Here  is  the  sentence,  "Through 
much  tribulation,"  but  here  is  also  "  the  Kingdom 


262  CHRISTIAN    AT    THE 

of  Heaven  ;"  and  who  so  pitiful  as  not  to  be  willing 
to  undergo  the  tribulation,  to  encounter  the  hazard, 
to  run  the  gauntlet  of  these  armed  men  against  him, 
for  the  glory  of  that  kingdom. 

Yea,  saith  Christian,  verily  I  think  I  can  un- 
derstand this.  But  here  you  will  remark  how 
great  a  multitude  stood  round  the  gate  of  this  pa- 
lace, fearing,  yet  desiring — desiring,  yet  fearing,  to 
enter  in.  And  you  see  that  Christian  found,  while 
he  was  there,  only  one  among  them,  of  like  spirit 
with  himself,  only  one  who  would  come  up'and  say, 
Set  down  my  name,  sir.  Ah,  what  a  multitude 
there  are,  who  have  some  faint  desires  after 
heaven,  and  half  a  mind,  a  thousand  times,  to  set 
out  in  the  way  thither,  but  who  never  do  it,  who 
always  shrink  back.  These  men  around  the  gate 
were  so  many  Pliables,  who  were  sure  to  go  back 
to  the  City  of  Destruction  ;  and  we  would  say  to 
those  many  persons  in  just  their  situation,  unless 
you  come  to  a  fixed  resolution,  unless  you  step 
quickly  and  boldly  to  the  gate,  with  your  heart 
on  fire,  and  say,  Set  down  my  name,  sir,  in  a 
tone  that  shall  make  Christian  rejoice,  and  the 
armed  men  tremble,  you  are  not  likely  ever  to  fight 
your  way  into  this  palace,  or  ever  to  be  walking  with 
those  upon  its  top  in  glory. 

As  for  Christian,  his  whole  heart  went  with  the 
man  of  stout  countenance,  and  went  with  every  blow 
he  gave,  and  he  was  so  ravished  with  his  courage 
and  with  the  pleasant  voice  and  the  glory,  that  as 
soon  as  that  sight  was  done  with,  he  was  for  start- 
ing at  once  upon  his  journey.  Now,  said  Christian, 
let  me  go  hence.  How  often  does  the  young  con- 


HOUSE    OF    THE    INTERPRETER.  268 

vert,  in  his  moments  of  triumph,  think  he  has  got 
instruction  enough,  and  grace  enough,  to  last  him 
all  the  way  of  his  pilgrimage.  But  he  needs,  as  I 
said,  a  great  many  sights,  and  much  more  heavenly 
discipline  in  the  House  of  the  Interpreter,  or  his 
boasted  courage  will  fail  by  the  way.  Christian 
thought  he  had  received  an  impulse,  under  which 
his  soul  would  shoot  forward  like  an  arrow,  a  gale 
of  the  Spirit  filling  his  sails,  that  would  carry  his 
bark  swiftly  through  all  tempests  to  heaven  ;  he 
felt  indeed  as  if  he  were  in  heaven  beforehand,  he 
did  so  long  to  be  there ;  under  this  ravishing  sight 
he  scarcely  felt  the  weight  of  his  burden,  and  not  a 
word  was  said  to  the  Interpreter  about  removing  it. 
But  Christian  needs  more  instruction  still ;  and  as 
these  bright  colors  are  apt  to  fade  from  the  picture, 
or  grow  unnoticed,  unless  they  be  set  off  and 
heightened,  and  made  more  important  by  some 
dark  shades  besides  them,  the  Interpreter  did  now, 
with  heavenly  skill,  direct  Christian's  attention  to  a 
vision  terribly  instructive,  which  would  both  be 
fixed  itself  in  his  remembrance,  and  would  make  the 
bright  vision  more  precious  to  him.  Stay,  said 
the  Interpreter,  till  I  have  showed  thee  a  little 
more,  and  after  that  thou  shalt  go  on  thy  way. 
When  the  Holy  Spirit  undertakes  to  illuminate  and 
sanctify  the  soul,  he  will  do  it  thoroughly  ;  he  will 
not  dismiss  a  soldier  to  his  work  without  his 
armor.  Nor  must  the  Christian  be  impatient 
of  instruction,  or  of  the  time  during  which  he 
seems  to  be  detained  in  learning;  for  it  is  very 
precious  to  be  thus  in  the  House  of  the  Inter- 
preter, under  the  teachings  of  the  Holy  Spirit ;  and 


264  CHRISTIAN    IN    THE 

he  may   be    sure    that  all    he    can  gain,  he  will 
need.     Warnings  he  needs,  and  solemn  ones. 

So  the  Interpreter  took  Christian  by  the  hand 
again,  and  led  him  into  a  very  dark  room,  where 
there  sat  a  man  in  an  iron  cage.  Now  the  man  to 
look  on  seemed  very  sad  :  he  sat  with  his  eyes 
looking  down  to  the  ground,  his  hands  folded 
together,  and  he  sighed  as  if  he  would  break  his 
heart.  Then  said  Christian,  What  means  this  ? 
At  which  the  Interpreter  bid  him  talk  with  the 
man.  Then  said  Christian  to  the  man,  What  art 
thou  I  Christian's  heart  trembled  as  he  put  this 
question,  and  he  said  within  himself,  Alas,  if 
I  should  ever  be  in  this  condition  !  The  man 
answered,  I  am  what  I  was  not  once.  What  wast 
thou  once  ?  said  Christian.  The  man  said,  I  was 
once  a  fair  and  flourishing  professor,  both  in  mine 
own  eyes,  and  also  in  the  eyes  of  others.  I  was 
also,  as  I  thought,  fair  for  the  Celestial  City,  and 
had  even  joy  at  the  thoughts  that  I  should  get 
thither.  Well,  said  Christian,  but  what  art  thou 
now  1  I  am  now  a  Man  of  Despair,  and  am 
shut  up  in  it,  as  in  this  iron  cage.  I  cannot  get 
out ;  O  now  I  cannot.  But  how  earnest  thou 
into  this  condition  ?  said  Christian.  I  left  off  to 
watch  and  be  sober ;  I  laid  the  reins  upon  the 
neck  of  my  lusts  :  I  sinned  against  the  light  of 
the  Word,  and  the  goodness  of  God ;  I  have 
grieved  the  Spirit,  and  he  is  gone ;  I  tempted  the 
devil,  and  he  is  come  to  me  ;  I  have  provoked 
God  to  anger,  and  he  has  left  me  ;  I  have  so 
hardened  my  heart,  that  I  cannot  repent. 

Then  said  Christian  to  the  Interpreter,  But  are 


HOUSE    OF    THE    INTERPRETER.  265 

there  no  hopes  for  such  a  man  as  this  1  It  was 
a  dreadful  sight  to  Christian,  as  it  must  be  to  us 
all ;  for  what  happened  to  this  man  may  happen  to 
any  man,  who  leaves  off  to  be  sober  and  to  watch 
unto  prayer.  It  made  Christian  weep  and  tremble 
to  see  the  deep  misery  of  this  man.  But  you  will 
mark  that  the  Interpreter  does  not  give  any  answer 
to  Christian,  does  not  tell  him  whether  there  is  yet 
hope  or  not,  but  refers  him  to  the  man  himself 
for  answer.  Bunyan  evidently  did  not  mean  to 
set  it  down  as  the  judgment  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
that  such  an  one  as  this  was  past  hope  ;  and  doubt- 
less men  have  conceived  themselves  in  this  con- 
dition, for  whom  there  was  hope,  and  the  door  of 
whose  cage  has  afterwards  been  opened,  and  they 
have  come  out.  There  may  be  a  spiritual  gloom, 
amounting,  as  it  seems  to  the  soul  under  it,  to 
actual  despair,  from  which  there  is  at  length  a 
blessed  deliverance.  David  was  sometimes  in 
prison  in  this  way,  and  on  account  of  his  sins. 
Bring  my  soul  out  of  prison,  he  cries ;  and  in  the 
eighty-eighth  Psalm  you  have  the  statement  of  a 
case  almost  as  bad  as  this  of  the  Man  in  the  Cage 
of  Despair.  The  Poet  Cowper  was  thus  in  prison 
much  of  his  time  ;  but  in  his  case  it  was  a  mind  of 
exquisite  sensibility,  thrown  from  its  balance,  and 
really  insane  in  the  belief  of  his  being  a  lost  soul. 
There  are  doubtless,  other  causes  of  spiritual 
gloorn  besides  sin,  but  unbelief  and  sin  are  the 
ordinary  causes.  Bunyan  himself  was  some- 
times in  this  gloomy  state,  without  a  ray  of  com- 
fort, but  never  in  such  a  state  that  he  could  not 
pray  for  mercy.  Christian,  when  he  fell  into  the 
34 


266  CHRISTIAN    IN    THE 

dungeon   of  Giant  Despair's  Castle,  was  in   this 
condition  ;  and  he  must  then  have  remembered  this 
picture   of  the  man  in  the  iron  cage  with  fearful 
vividness  and  keenness.     The  full  sight  and  sense 
of  any  man's  sins,  without  the  sight   and  sense 
of  a  Saviour's  mercy  at  the  same  time,  would  be 
sufficient  to  cast  the  soul  at  any  time  into  utter 
despair  ;  and  we  are  inclined  to  think  that  Bunyan 
had  in  his  memory,  at  the  time  of  writing  this  de- 
scription, that  book,  which   had    so    powerful  an 
effect  once   upon   his   own   mind,  the    despairing 
death  of  Francis  Spira,  the    apostate,  and   espe- 
cially that  sentence,  Man  knows  the  beginning  of 
sin,  but  who  can  bound  the  issues  thereof?     And 
Bunyan   intended    not  to  represent   this  man  as 
actually  beyond  the  reach  of  mercy,  but  to  show 
the  dreadful  consequences  of  departing  from  God, 
and  of  being  abandoned  of  him  to  the  misery  of 
unbelief  and  despair. 

So  Christian,  as  the  Interpreter  bade  him,  ac- 
costed the  man.  Is  there  no  hope,  said  he,  but 
you  must  be  kept  in  the  Iron  Cage  of  Despair  ? 
No,  none  at  all,  said  the  man.  Why,  said  Chris- 
tian, the  Son  of  the  Blessed  is  very  merciful.  Then 
said  the  man,  I  have  crucified  him  to  myself  afresh; 
I  have  despised  his  person  ;  I  have  despised  his 
righteousness  ;  I  have  counted  his  blood  an  un- 
holy thing  ;  I  have  done  despite  to  the  Spirit  of 
Grace  ;  therefore  I  shut  myself  out  of  all  the  pro- 
mises ;  and  there  now  remains  to  me  nothing  but 
threatenings,  dreadful  threatenings,  faithful  threat- 
enings,  of  certain  judgments  and  fiery  indignation, 
which  shall  devour  me  as  an  adversary. 


HOUSE    OF    THE    INTERPRETER.  267 

For  what  did  you  bring  yourself  into  this  condi- 
tion? asked  Christian.  For  the  lusts,  pleasures, 
and  profits  of  this  world,  in  the  enjoyment  of 
which  I  did  then  promise  myself  much  delight ;  but 
now  every  one  of  those  things  also  bite  me,  and 
gnaw  me  like  a  burning  worm. 

But  canst  thou  not  now  repent  and  turn?  asked 
Christian.  The  man  persevered  in  his  gloomy 
awful  answer.  It  is  indeed,  a  picture  to  the  life, 
of  a  soul  in  incurable  despair.  God  hath  denied 
me  repentance.  His  Word  gives  me  no  encou- 
ragement to  believe.  Yea,  himself  hath  shut  me 
up  in  this  iron  cage,  nor  can  all  the  men  in  the 
world  let  me  out.  O  Eernity  !  Eternity  !  How 
shall  I  grapple  with  the  misery  that  I  must  meet 
with  in  eternity ! 

Then  said  the  Interpreter  to  Christian,  Let  this 
man's  misery  be  remembered  by  thee,  and  be  an 
everlasting  caution  to  thee.  Well,  said  Christian, 
this  is  fearful  !  God  help  me  to  watch  and  be 
sober,  and  to  pray  that  I  may  shun  the  cause  of  this 
man's  misery.  This  was  indeed  a  fearful  lesson. 
The  sight  of  this  man  in  the  iron  cage  was  likely 
to  remain  with  Christian  at  least  as  long  as  the 
preceding  sight  of  the  venturous  man  cutting  his 
way  to  eternal  glory.  And  the  one  sight  is  judged 
as  important  by  the  holy  Spirit  as  the  other.  This, 
after  all,  is  nothing  more  than  the  reality  must  be, 
supposing  a  soul  in  the  case  described  by  Paul, 
For  it  is  impossible  for  those  once  enlightened,  &c., 
if  they  shall  fall  away,  to  renew  them  again  unto 
repentance.  Wo  unto  them,  says  God,  when  I 
depart  from  them.  There  is  no  stoicism  or  phi- 


268  CHRISTIAN   AT  THE 

losophy  can  stand  against  God's  departure.  There 
is  no  harm  can  happen  to  a  man,  who  has  God  for 
his  friend ;  but  there  is  no  good  can  happen  to  a 
man  abandoned  of  God.  When  he  giveth  quiet- 
ness, who  then  can  make  trouble  ?  and  when  he 
hideth  his  face,  who  then  can  behold  him  !  whe- 
ther it  be  done  against  a  nation  or  against  a  man 
only. 

Sir,  said  Christian,  is  it  not  time  for  me  to  be  on 
my  way  now  1  The  Interpreter  would  have  him 
tarry  to  see  one  thing  more.  So  he  took  him  by 
the  hand,  and  led  him  into  a  chamber,  where  there 
was  one  rising  out  of  bed  ;  and  as  he  put  on  his 
raiment  he  shook  and  trembled.  This  night,  said 
he,  as  I  was  in  my  sleep,  I  dreamed,  and  behold  the 
heavens  grew  exceeding  black  ;  also,  it  thundered 
and  lightened  in  most  fearful  wise,  that  it  put  me 
into  an  agony.  So  I  looked  up  in  my  dream,  and 
saw  the  clouds  rack  at  an  unusual  rate ;  upon 
which  I  heard  a  great  sound  of  a  trumpet,  and  saw 
also  a  man  sitting  upon  a  cloud,  attended  with  ten 
thousands  of  heaven.  They  were  all  in  flaming 
fire  ;  also,  the  heavens  were  on  a  burning  flame. 
I  heard  then  a  great  voice,  saying,  "  Arise,  ye 
dead,  and  come  to  judgment !"  and  with  that  the 
rocks  rent,  the  graves  opened,  and  the  dead  that 
were  therein  came  forth,  some  of  them  were  ex- 
ceeding glad,  and  looked  upward;  and  some 
sought  to  hide  themselves  under  the  mountains. 
Then  I  saw  the  Man  that  sat  upon  the  cloud 
open  the  book,  and  bid  the  world  draw  near;  yet, 
there  was,  by  reason  of  a  fierce  flame  which  issued 
out,  and  came  before  him,  a  convenient  distance 


HOUSE    OF    THE    INTERPRETER.  269 

betwixt  him  and  them,  as  betwixt  the  judge  and 
the  prisoners  at  the  bar.  I  heard  it  also  proclaimed 
to  them  that  attended  on  the  Man  that  sat  on  the 
cloud,  "  Gather  together  the  tares,  the  chaff,  and 
stubble,  and  cast  them  into  the  burning  lake  ;" 
and  with  that  the  bottomless  pit  opened  just 
whereabout  I  stood ;  out  of  the  mouth  of  which 
there  came,  in  an  abundant  manner,  smoke  and 
coals  of  fire,  with  hideous  noises.  It  was  also 
said  to  the  same  persons,  "  Gather  my  wheat  into 
the  garner."  And  with  that  I  saw  many  catched 
up  and  carried  away  into  the  clouds ;  but  I  was 
left  behind.  I  also  sought  to  hide  myself,  but  I 
could  not ;  for  the  Man  that  sat  upon  the  cloud 
still  kept  his  eye  upon  me.  My  sins  also  came  into 
my  mind,  and  my  conscience  did  accuse  me  on 
every  side. 

In  this  terrific  dream,  what  terrified  the  Dreamer 
was  the  thought  that  the  Day  of  Judgment  had 
come,  and  that  he  was  not  ready  for  it  ;  and 
also  that  the  angels  gathered  up  some  for  glory 
close  by  his  side,  but  left  him  ;  and  also  that  the 
pit  of  hell  there  opened  where  he  stood  ;  while  con- 
science roused  up  and  tormented  him,  and  the 
Judge,  with  indignation  in  his  countenance,  always 
had  his  eye  upon  him. 

This  dream,  so  sublimely  told,  with  such  severe 
faithfulness  to  Scripture,  there  being  no  image 
in  it  but  such  as  you  may  find  in  the  Bible,  was 
the  recurrence  of  Bunyan's  own  early  experience, 
chastened  by  Divine  Truth.  One  of  Bunyan's 
biographers  has  given  us  the  record  of  some  of 
his  actual  early  dreams  in  such  language  as  carries 


CHRISTIAN    AT    THE 

the  stamp  of  Bunyan's  own  imagination  upon  it, 
and  shows  that  the  imagery  in  the  Pilgrim's  Pro- 
gress was  the  combination  anew,  with  a  ripened  art 
and  wisdom,  of  realities  which  his  own  soul  had 
experienced.  Once  he  dreamed  he  saw  the  face 
of  the  heavens  as  it  were  all  on  fire,  the  firma- 
ment crackling  and  shivering  as  it  were  with 
the  noise  of  mighty  thunders,  and  an  archangel 
flew  in  the  midst  of  heaven,  sounding  a  trumpet, 
and  a  glorious  throne  was  seated  on  the  east, 
whereon  sat  one  in  brightness  like  the  morning  star, 
upon  which  he,  thinking  it  was  the  end  of  the 
world,  fell  upon  his  knees,  and  with  uplifted  hands 
towards  heaven,  cried,  O  Lord  God,  have  mercy 
upon  me  !  What  shall  I  do  ?  the  day  of  judgment 
is  come,  and  I  am  not  prepared  !  Then  he  imme- 
diately heard  a  voice  behind  him,  exceeding  loud, 
saying,  REPENT.  Whereupon  he  awoke,  and 
found  it  was  a  dream.  Another  time  he  dreamed 
that  he  was  in  a  pleasant  place,  jovial  and  rioting, 
banqueting  and  feasting  his  senses,  when  imme- 
diately a  mighty  earthquake  rent  the  earth,  and 
made  a  wide  gape,  out  of  which  came  bloody 
flames,  and  the  figures  of  men  tossed  up  in  globes 
of  fire,  and  falling  down  again  with  horrible  cries, 
shrieks  and  execrations,  while  some  devils  that 
were  mingled  with  them  laughed  aloud  at  their 
torments ;  and  whilst  he  stood  trembling  at  this 
sight,  he  thought  the  earth  sank  under  him,  and  a 
circle  of  flame  enclosed  him  ;  but  when  he  fancied 
he  was  just  at  the  point  to  perish,  one  in  white 
shining  raiment  descended,  and  plucked  him  out 
of  that  dreadful  place,  while  the  devils  cried  after 


HOUSE   OF   THE    INTERPRETER.  271 

him  to  be  left  with  them,  to  take  the  just  punish- 
ment his  sins  had  desired  ;  yet  he  escaped  the 
danger,  and  leaped  for  joy,  when  he  awoke,  and 
found  it  was  a  dream. 

Now  in  these  dreams  of  Bunyan's  own  soul  you 
may  see  clearly  the  materials,  afterwards  put  more 
visibly  into  the  symmetrical  mould  of  Scripture 
imagery,  of  that  grand  and  awful  Dream  of  the 
Judgment,  which  the  Man  related  to  Christian  in 
the  House  of  the  Interpreter.  Almost  all  men  have 
at  times  passed  through  something  of  the  same 
experience ;  for  conscience  is  often  busy  in  the 
night-time,  when  the  external  business  of  the  day 
prevented  her  work  and  claims  from  being  attended 
to.  We  go  about  the  world  in  the  day  time,  we  see 
pleasant  companions,  we  are  absorbed  in  earthly 
schemes,  the  things  of  sense  are  around  us,  the 
world  is  as  bright  as  a  rainbow,  and  it  bears  for 
us  no  marks  or  predictions  of  the  judgment,  or 
of  our  sins,  and  it  holds  no  conversation  with  us  on 
those  subjects,  and  conscience  is  retired,  as  it  were, 
within  a  far  inner  circle  of  the  soul.  But  when  it 
comes  night,  and  the  streets  are  empty,  and  the 
lights  are  out,  and  the  business  and  dancing  and 
gayety  are  over,  and  the  pall  of  sleep  is  drawn 
over  the  senses,  and  reason  and  the  will  are  no 
longer  on  the  watch,  then  conscience  comes  out  so- 
lemnly, and  walks  about  in  the  silent  chambers  of 
the  sonl,  and  makes  her  survey  and  her  comments, 
and  sometimes  s'ts  down  and  sternly  reads  the 
record  of  a  life  that  the  waking  man  would  never 
look  into,  and  the  catalogue  of  crimes  that  are  ga- 
thering for  the  judgment.  And  as  conscience 


272  CHRISTIAN    AT   THE 

reads,  and  reads  aloud,  and  soliloquizes,  you  may 
hear  the  still  deep  echo  of  her  voice  reverbera- 
ted through  the  soul's  most  secret  unveiled  re- 
cesses. Imagination  walks  tremblingly  behind 
her,  and  now  they  two  alone  pass  though  the  open 
gate  of  the  Scriptures  into  the  future  and  eternal 
world ;  for  thither  all  things  in  man's  being  na- 
turally and  irresistibly  tend  ;  and  there,  as  con- 
science is  still  dwelling  upon  sin,  imagination  draws 
the  judgment,  and  the  soul  is  presented  at  the  bar 
of  God,  and  the  eye  of  the  Judge  is  on  it,  and  a 
hand  of  fire  writes,  as  on  the  wall  of  the  universe, 
Thou  art  weighed  in  the  balances  and  found  want- 
ing !  Then,  whatever  sinful  thoughts  or  passions, 
words  or  deeds,  the  conscience  enumerates  and 
dwells  upon,  the  imagination  with  prophetic  truth 
fills  eternity  with  corresponding  shapes  of  evil.  Our 
dreams  sometimes  reveal  our  character,  our  sins, 
our  destinies,  far  more  clearly  than  our  waking 
thoughts ;  for  whereas  by  day  the  energies  of  our 
being  are  turned  into  artificial  channels,  by  night 
our  thoughts  follow  the  bent  that  is  most  natural  to 
them  ;  and  as  man  is  both  an  immortal  and  a  sinful 
being,  the  consequences  both  of  his  immortality  and 
his  sinfulness  will  sometimes  be  made  to  stand  out 
in  overpowering  light,  when  the  busy  pursuits  of  day 
and  of  the  world  are  not  able  to  turn  the  soul  from 
wandering  towards  eternity. 

A  morning  is  coming,  when  we  shall  all  awake  out 
of  the  sleep  of  this  world,  but  the  Dream  of  the  Judg- 
ment will  then  be  no  longer  a  dream.  The  friendly 
warning  of  the  dream  will  have  passed  forever,  to 
give  place  to  the  reality.  The  thrones  will  be  set, 


HOUSE    OF    THE    IiNTERPRETER.  273 

the  dead  will  be  raised,  and  we  shall  be  judged;  the 
Great  White  Throne,  and  Him  that  sitteth  thereon, 
and  all  nations  gathered  before  him ! 

Oh  to  be  ready,  ready  for  that  Day ! 

Who  would  not  give  earth's  fairest  toys  away ! 

So  thought  Christian,  when  in  mingled  hope  and 
fear  on  account  of  what  he  had  seen,  he  began  to 
gird  up  his  loins,  and  to  address  himself  to  his 
journey.  The  Comforter  be  always  with  thee, 
said  the  Interpreter,  to  guide  thee  in  the  way 
that  leads  to  the  city  !  So  he  went  musing  on 
his  way,  grateful  to  the  good  Interpreter,  medita- 
ting on  what  he  had  seen,  drawing  out  the  les- 
sons, and  soliloquizing  over  them,  and  praying  for 
Divine  Grace  to  make  them  profitable.  In  truth, 
the  things  which  he  had  seen  were  some  of  the 
most  precious  fruits  of  Bunyan's  sanctified  genius 
and  deep  religious  experience.  Whoever  has  read 
Bunyan's  Divine  Emblems  for  Youth,  will  see  at  once 
the  same  hand  that  placed  these  varieties  for  his  Pil- 
grim's instruction  in  the  House  of  the  Interpreter. 
Bunyan  might  have  added  to  them  in  verses 
wrought  with  the  art  of  a  true  poet,  had  it  pleased 
him  so  to  exercise  his  skill. 

It  is  difficult  to  overstate  the  importance  for 
the  mind  in  childhood  of  a  book  that  contains 
such  pictures  at  once  so  alluring,  so  solemn  and 
instructive.  We  speak  from  experience,  and  from 
what  we  have  heard  others  describe  of  its  effect  upon 
their  minds  in  early  youth,  when  we  suggest  the 
importance  of  children  early  reading  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress.  It  never  se^ms  so  beautiful,  so  fasci- 

35 


274  CHRISTIAN    AT    THE 

nating  a  book,  to  those  who  read  it  first  in  later 
life,  as  to  those  who,  having  read  it  in  childhood, 
when  its  power  over  the  imagination  is  unbounded, 
read  it  afterwards  with  a  grave  perception  and  un- 
derstanding of  its  meaning.  It  becomes  a  series  of 
holy  pictures  engraven  on  the  soul  in  its  early, 
simple,  childlike  state,  and  though  these  pictures 
may  be  afterwards  covered  with  sin,  yet  some  time 
or  other  their  covering  may  be  swept  off,  and  then 
out  shine  the  pictures,  in  all  their  freshness  and 
beauty.  And  what  is  true  of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress 
is  much  more  true  of  the  Bible.  Where  such  early 
impressions  are  made  upon  the  mind,  it  would  seem 
as  if  Satan  works  hard  to  destroy  them  ;  he  takes 
the  tablet,  and  rubs  out  the  inscription,  just  as  the 
monks  of  old  used  to  erase  the  classics,  and 
write  over  them  on  the  same  parchment  their 
own  absurd  legends  ;  but  God  can  restore  the 
original  inscriptions,  and  can  utterly  efface  the 
writing  of  the  Wicked  One.  And  sometimes  the 
original  Builder  of  the  mind  is  pleased  to  write  his 
own  name  so  deep  there,  that  though  it  may  be 
covered  with  depravity,  in  which  Satan  afterwards 
engraves  his,  and  thinks  it  is  written  in  the  solid 
rock,  yet  God  has  a  previous  writing,  and  the  Holy 
Spirit,  in  a  season  of  trouble  and  conviction  upon 
the  sinner,  can  break  away  that  covering  of  depra- 
vity, and  Satan's  name  along  with  it,  and  there 
shall  be  God's  name  shining,  and  the  whole  temple 
of  the  mind  shall  be  God's  Living  Temple.  See 
that  you  write  God's  name  upon  your  children's 
minds  ;  and  in  order  to  do  this,  you  must  use  the 
graving  tools,  which  God  himself  has  given  you, 


HOUSE    OF   THE    INTERPRETER.  275 

the  diamond  pen  of  the  Word  of  God,  sharper 
to  write  with,  and  to  cut  with,  than  any  two-edged 
sword,  and  always  successful,  when  used  with 
faith  and  prayer. 

Refreshed  and  instructed  in  the  House  of  the 
Interpreter,  Christian  sets  forward  on  his  journey. 
His  burden  is  still  wearisome,  and   some  of  the 
sights  which  he  has  seen,  tend  to  make  him  feel 
it   more    sensibly,   and    to   long   for   deliverance. 
Though   the    highway  was    fenced    in   on  either 
side  with  the  wall  of  Salvation,   yet,  as  the   way 
was  ascending,  Christian  ran  with  great  difficulty, 
because  of  the  load  on  his  back.     But  now   he 
was  near  his  deliverance,    which    indeed  the   in- 
structions of  the  Holy  Spirit  had  prepared  him  to 
experience  and  receive  as  a  reality,  a  lasting,  com- 
manding reality,  and   not   a  mistaken,   transitory, 
superficial  joy.     There  is  not  a  more   important  * 
lesson  taught  in  this    book,  than  that  growth  in 
grace  is  not  to  be  measured  by  sensible  comfort, 
that  joy  is  not  to  be  sought  as  a  test  or  proof  of 
grace,  and  that  a  person  may  be  in  Christ,  and  yet 
a  deep  sense  of  the  burden  of  sin  may  long  remain 
upon  the  soul.     The  teachings  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
are  needed,  and  new  discoveries  of  the  plan  of  sal- 
vation through  Christ,  and  only  in  proportion  as 
the  soul  sees  clearly  Christ  and  his  Cross,  and  is 
filled   and    absorbed  with   the   Saviour,   does   the 
burden  of  sin  disappear,  and  the  happiness  of  the 
soul  become    de£p    and   lasting.      All  the    direct 
efforts  of  Christian  to  get  rid  of  his  burden  were 
of   no  avail,  nor  was    it  till    he    had  the  fullest 
view  of  the  Cross,  not  till    that    salvation    com- 


276  CHRISTIAN  AT  THE  HOUSE,  &C. 

pletely  filled  his  soul,  that  the  burden  fell  from 
him.  He  was  not  seeking  to  be  rid  of  it  when 
he  lost  sight  of  it ;  no,  he  was  coming  up  to  the 
cross  and  the  sepulchre,  his  attention  was  occu- 
pied with  Christ,  his  sufferings,  his  death,  his 
atoning  sacrifice  for  sinners,  and  as  he  ran  and 
gazed,  and  saw  these  things  more  clearly,  and 
came  at  length  quite  to  the  foot  of  the  cross,  then 
his  burden  fell  from  him  while  he  was  gazing,  ad- 
miring and  loving,  and  rolled  quite  into  the 
mouth  of  the  sepulchre,  so  that  he  saw  it  no  more. 
And  very  much  surprised  was  he  that  the  sight 
of  the  cross  should  thus  ease  him  of  his  burden. 
It  made  him  glad  and  lightsome,  and  he  ex- 
claimed with  a  merry  heart,  He  hath  given  me 
rest  by  his  sorrow,  and  life  by  his  death.  And  so, 
as  he  stood  and  wondered,  he  wept  and  wept 
again  for  gratitude,  sorrow  and  joy.  And  now 
came  to  him  the  Three  Shining  Ones,  as  he  stood 
looking  and  weeping,  and  they  all  together  saluted 
him,  Peace  be  to  thee.  The  first  said  to  him, 
Thy  sins  be  forgiven  thee.  The  second  stripped 
him  of  his  rags,  and  clothed  him  with  change  of 
raiment.  The  third  also  set  a  mark  on  his  fore- 

•i 

head  and  gave  him  a  roll  with  a  seal  upon  it, 
which  he  bid  him  look  to  as  he  ran,  and  that  he 
should  give  it  in  at  the  Celestial  Gate;  so  they 
went  their  way.  Then  Christian  gave  three  leaps 
for  joy,  and  went  on  singing. 


CHRISTIAJN 

ON    THE 

HILL     DIFFICULTY- 


Happiness  of  Christian  with  his  roll.— His  efforts  to  save  others.— Simple,  Sloth  and 
Presumption.— Christian's  knowledge  of  character.— Formalist  and  Hypocrisy.— 
Christian  climbing  the  Hill.— The  sleep  in  the  arbor,  and  the  loss  of  his  roll.— 
Christian  weeping  and  searching  for  it. — His  thankfulness  at  finding  it. 

WE  left  Christian  light  of  heart,  and  singing 
for  joy  of  his  deliverance  from  his  burden.  How 
lightly  did  he  now  step  forward,  with  what  pleasant 
thoughts  in  his  soul,  with  what  precious  views  of 
the  cross  and  of  the  way  of  salvation !  Now  it 
seemed  to  him  that  he  should  never  tire.  He 
thought  of  that  sweet  Psalm,  When  the  Lord 
turned  again  the  captivity  of  Zion,  we  were  like 
them  that  dream.  Sometimes  he  could  scarcely 
persuade  himself  that  it  was  a  reality  ;  he  was 
almost  afraid  it  was  a  dream.  But  then,  there 
was  his  roll  that  had  been  given  him,  and  the  new 
dress  in  which  the  Shining  Ones  had  arrayed  him, 
and  his  heart  was  full  of  gratitude  and  love.  He 
thought  "  he  could  have  spoken  to  the  very  crows 
that  sat  upon  the  ploughed  land  by  the  way-side," 
to  have  told  them  of  his  joy,  and  of  the  precious- 
ness  of  hia  Saviour,  if  they  could  have  understood 

36 


278  CHRISTIAN    ON    THE 

it.    His  heart  was  like  the  blind  man's  restored  to 
sight,  and  just  as  simple  and  unaffected. 

Now  methinks  I  hear  him  praising, 

Publishing  to  all  around, 
Friends,  is  not  my  case  amazing  ? 

What  a  Saviour  I  have  found ! 

Yes,  and  now  Christian  desires  to  save  others. 
The  joy  in  his  soul  was  no  transitory  sympathy  or 
selfish  hope,  that  would  subside  into  indolence. 
It  led  him  to  set  himself  at  work  at  once  to  win 
others  to  Christ.  This  is  very  striking.  Now  he 
would  neglect  no  opportunity  of  doing  good,  and 
he  did  not  say,  when  he  saw  some  ready  to  perish, 
I  am  but  a  young  Christian,  but  just  now  converted, 
and  must  wait  till  I  have  more  experience,  before  I 
try  to  persuade  others.  Not  at  all.  But  the  very 
first  opportunity  Christian  had  after  his  release 
from  his  burden,  he  faithfully  employed  it.  As 
he  went  on,  singing  and  making  melody  in  his 
heart  unto  the  Lord,  he  came  to  a  wide  level 
place,  where  he  saw,  a  little  out  of  the  way,  three 
men  fast  asleep,  with  fetters  on  their  heels.  Their 
names  were  Simple,  Sloth,  and  Presumption.  The 
first  thing  Christian  did  was  to  go  to  them  and 
endeavor  to  awake  them,  which  he  thought  cer- 
tainly he  might  easily  do,  for  their  danger  was 
clear  to  him,  though  they  themselves  did  not  seem 
to  see  it.  So  he  cried  out  to  them  to  awake, 
telling  them  that  they  might  as  well  sleep  on  the  top 
of  a  mast,  for  that  the  Dead  Sea  was  under  them,  a 
gulf  without  a  bottom.  Awake,  said  he,  and  come 
away,  or  you  will  perish  forever.  He  furthermore 
told  them  that  if  they  were  but  willing,  he  would 


HILL    DIFFICULTY.  279 

help  them  off  with  their  irons,  but  they  manifested 
no  anxiety.  He  told  them  that  if  he  that  goeth 
about  as  a  roaring  lion  came  by,  they  would  cer- 
tainly become  a  prey  to  his  teeth.  In  fine,  he  used 
all  proper  and  likely  means  to  wake  them  up  ;  and 
they  were  at  length  so  far  roused  as  to  listen  to 
him,  and  answer  him. 

Simple  said,  I  see  no  danger.  That  was  the 
voice  of  one-third  part  of  the  world  in  their  sins. 
Tell  them  they  are  sleeping  on  the  brink  of  per- 
dition, and  they  say,  We  see  no  danger.  Sloth 
said,  Yet  a  little  more  sleep.  That  was  the 
voice  of  another  third  part  of  the  world.  A  little 
longer  indulgence  in  sin  is  pleaded  for,  a  little 
more  quiet  ease  and  indifference ;  wait  till  we 
have  a  more  convenient  season  ;  a  little  more  fold- 
ing of  the  hands  to  sleep !  Presumption  said, 
Every  vat  must  stand  on  its  own  bottom.  There 
outspoke  at  least  another  third  part  of  the  world  in 
their  sins.  Take  care  of  your  interests,  and  I 
will  take  care  of  mine.  You  need  not  trouble 
yourself  about  my  salvation.  I  am  not  at  all 
concerned  but  that  all  will  go  well,  and  I  am  ready 
to  take  my  chance.  All  these  classes  of  men 
Christians  have  to  encounter  in  their  efforts  to 
awaken  the  sinner  and  bring  him  to  repentance; 
so  Christian  was  earnest  and  faithful,  but  all  his 
efforts  were  of  no  avail.  These  persons  laid  them- 
selves down  to  sleep  again,  and  Christian  went 
sorrowfully  on  his  way,  being  sad  to  think  of  the 
danger  they  were  in,  and  their  insensibility  to  it, 
and  their  utter  indifference  as  to  the  help  proffered 
them  to  get  them  out  of  it. 


280  CHRISTIAN    ON  THE 

But  now  there  met  him  persons  of  a  different 
sort ;  for  behold  two  men  came  tumbling  over  the 
wall,  on  the  left  hand  of  the  narrow  way  ;  and  they 
made  up  apace  to  him.  The  name  of  the  one  was 
Formalist,  and  the  name  of  the  other  Hypocrisy. 
It  looked  very  suspicious  to  see  them  tumbling 
over  the  wall ;  so  Christian  asked  at  once  where 
they  came  from,  and  whither  they  were  going. 
Their  answer  was  very  curious.  We  were  born 
in  the  land  of  Vainglory,  and  are  going  for  praise 
to  Mount  Zion.  Christian  asked  them  why  they 
did  not  come  in  at  the  gate,  for  that  they  who  came 
not  in  by  the  door,  but  did  climb  up  some  other 
way,  were  thieves  and  robbers.  They  told  him 
that  in  their  country  of  Vainglory,  that  gate  was 
considered  too  far  round  about,  so  that  it  was  their 
custom  to  make  a  short  cut,  and  get  over  the  wall. 
Now  you  will  remark  that  Bunyan  had  met  these 
characters  himself,  and  was  well  acquainted  with 
them.  He  is  here  painting  from  real  «life  ;  indeed 
in  every  part  of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress  he  had 
but  to  look  back  through  the  perspective  of  the 
way  he  had  himself  been  travelling,  and  its 
characters  started  into  life,  thronging  the  path 
with  such  number  and  vividness,  that  the  diffi- 
culty was  not  to  find  portraits,  but  to  make  choice 
of  his  materials.  He  had  also  only  to  look  into 
his  own  soul,  with  the  wonderful  clearness  and 
accuracy  with  which  he  remembered  every  part  of 
his  experience,  and  there  he  found  within  his  own 
past  self,  before  he  became  a  Christian,  the  por- 
traiture of  many  a  character  introduced  in  his 
pages ;  the  portraitures  of  just  such  characters  as 


HILL   DIFFICULTY.  281 

he  would  himself  have  become,  had  he  stopped 
where  they  did;  had  he  stopped  at  the  points, 
where  he  sketched  and  painted  these  developments 
of  classes. 

This  is,  in  truth,  an  illustration  of  the  meaning  of 
that  passage,  Evil  men  understand  not  judgment, 
but  they  that  seek  the  Lord  understand  all  things. 
And  also  of  that  in  1  Cor.  ii.  15.  We  see  plainly 
that  as  a  clear-sighted  Christian  looks  back  upon 
his  own  experience,  he  sees  himself  in  many 
Aspects,  and  through  the  prism  of  his  own  na- 
ture, he  sees  a  thousand  others;  he  sees,  through 
and  through,  the  motives,  thoughts,  feelings,  veils 
and  hiding-places  of  every  possible  variety  of  the 
children  of  this  world,  because  he  has  been  one  of 
them.  He  sees  some  stopping  with  their  charac- 
ters in  perfection  at  one  stage  of  his  own  ex- 
perience, and  some  at  other  stages  ;  some  more 
advanced  towards  the  point  where  he  himself  really 
set  out  to  be  a  Christian,  and  some  less ;  but  many 
he  sees,  through  the  perfect  knowledge  he  has  of 
his  own  past  refuges  of  lies,  evidently  trusting  in 
the  same  refuges;  refuges  whore  he  himself  would 
have  stopped  and  died  as  a  pretended  Christian, 
had  not  God  had  mercy  on  him. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  man  of  the  world,  a 
wicked  man,  an  unconverted  man,  cannot  see  be- 
yond the  line  of  his  own  experience ;  the  things 
of  the  Christian  are  hidden  from  him,  for  he  has 
never  gone  into  them  ;  it  is  a  world  unknown,  a 
world  hidden  by  a  veil  that  he  has  never  lifted, 
a  region  of  blessedness,  knowledge  and  glory, 
where  his  feet  have  never  wandered  ;  a  region  of 


282  CHRISTIAN    ON   THE 

sweet  fields,  and  living  streams  and  vast  prospects, 
of  which    he   knows   nothing,  and  can  conceive 
nothing.     It  is  all  like  the  unseen  future  to  him. 
But  the  Christian,  you   will  perceive,  is  looking 
back  ;    experience    illumines    the    path   that  has 
been  passed  over,  and  the  Christian  sees  that  path 
clearly,  and  that  path  embraces  all  the  world  in  it, 
just  so  far  as  it  is  the  broad  way,  in  which  all 
characters    in   the  world    are  travelling.      So  he 
which  is  spiritual  judgeth  all  things,  but  he  him- 
self is  judged   of  no  man.     So,  in  looking  back, 
as  Bunyan  did,  he  says,  Do  you  see  such    and 
such   an    one,   travelling    at    such    a   pace,  with 
such    professions    and    conversations  ?      A    few 
years  ago,  I    was    just   such    a  person ;    I  know 
him  perfectly.      Do  you   see  that  thief  going  to 
prison,  that  murderer  going  to  execution  ?     Now 
but  for  the  grace    of  God  I  was    travelling   the 
same  way.     But  for  the  grace  of  God  there  goes 
John  Bradford.     So  Bunyan  said  of  himself,  in 
describing  these  two  fellows,  Formalist  and  Hypo- 
crisy, But  for  the  grace  of  God  there  goes  John 
Bunyan.      Nay,    in    describing    these  characters, 
Bunyan  was  just  cutting  out  two  of  the  pictures 
of  his  own  unconverted  state,  to  insert  them  into 
this  heavenly  Mosaic  of  his  Pilgrim's  Progress. 

For,  in  point  of  fact,  he  had  been  himself  both 
Formalist  and  Hypocrisy  ;  he  had  acted  both  these 
parts  in  his  unconverted  state  ;  and,  if  he  had 
stopped  there,  he  had  lived  and  died  a  formalist 
and  a  hypocrite.  I  do  not  mean  that  Bunyan  ever 
had  in  his  character  the  elements  of  such  mean- 
ness, as  would  take  to  itself  deliberately  the  cloak 


HILL    DIFFICULTY.  283 

of  religion  to  cover,  conceal  and  practice  its  wick- 
edness ;  that  is  the  extreme  of  hypocrisy,  and 
marks  the  most  abandoned  of  all  villains.  But 
formalism  itself  is  hypocrisy,  and  where  a  man 
does  only  deceive  himself,  by  the  concealment 
from  himself  of  his  own  true  character  as  a  sinner, 
and  by  trusting  in  some  other  refuge  than  Christ, 
that  man  is  a  hypocrite,  for  he  pretends  to  be  a 
great  deal  better  than  he  is  ;  nay,  he  pretends  to 
have  goodness  enough  for  his  salvation,  without 
coming  in  by  the  door,  when  God  knows  it  is  all 
rottenness  and  a  lie. 

Now  you  will  remember  there  was  a  time  when 
Bunyan  was  a  thorough  going  Churchman,  without 
one  particle  of  religion  in  his  soul.  He  would  go 
to  church  in  the  morning,  and  worship  the  minis- 
ter's robes,  and  the  altar,  and  in  the  afternoon  he 
would  make  the  air  ring  with  his  merriment  at  the 
game  of  Cat.  At  this  time,  you  will  remember, 
he  neither  cared  nor  knew  whether  there  were  any 
Saviour  or  not ;  the  complete  sum  of  his  religion 
was  Form,  nor  did  he  even  attempt  to  go  any  far- 
ther. So,  certainly,  here  was  the  Formalist  in 
perfection.  At  another  time,  he  was  going  to 
heaven  by  an  external  reformation,  and  thought  he 
pleased  God  as  well  as  any  man  in  England.  But 
he  declared  that  every  thing  he  either  did  or  said, 
was  done  solely  out  of  regard  to  human  applause  ; 
for  he  was  filled  with  delight  to  hear  his  neighbors 
speak  so  well  of  him.  Here  again,  certainly,  was 
the  hypocrite  in  perfection.  So  that  that  answer, 
which  Formalist  and  Hypocrite  made  to  Christian, 
Bunyan  wrote  down  out  of  his  old,  unconverted, 


284  CHRISTIAN   ON    THE 

vainglorious  heart :    We  come  from  the  land  of 
Vainglory,  and  are  going  for  praise  to  Mount  Zion. 

The  right  way  by  the  gate,  the  way  by  Christ 
and  his  righteousness,  was  deemed  too  far.  But, 
said  Christian,  will  it  not  be  counted  a  trespass 
against  the  Lord  of  the  City  whither  we  are  bound, 
thus  to  violate  his  revealed  will  ?  Christian  is  al- 
ways for  Scripture.  But  they  told  him  that  they  had 
plenty  of  examples  for  the  way  they  came  in,  and 
testimony  for  more  than  a  thousand  years  ;  yea, 
the  antiquity  of  the  custom  was  such  that  every 
impartial  judge  would  admit  it  as  a  thing  legal. 
The  fathers  would  doubtless  be  brought  to  justify 
it,  and  all  antiquity  was  in  its  favor ;  and  when 
such  multitudes  had  been  justified  by  works  for 
more  than  a  thousand  years,  they  would  have  been 
fools  indeed,  seeing  that  in  the  land  of  Vainglory 
there  was  plenty  of  that  commodity,  works  done  to 
be  seen  of  men,  if  they  should  trouble  themselves 
about  faith  and  the  gate.  Besides,  if  we  are  in, 
we  are  in,  said  they.  Thou  art  only  in,  who  didst 
come  by  the  gate ;  and  we  are  also  in,  who  came 
over  the  wall ;  so  there  is  no  difference. 

Now  here  is  depicted  to  the  life  that  pretended 
liberality  which  you  so  often  hear  in  men's  con- 
versation. All  persuasions,  it  says,  are  right,  and 
we  are  all  travelling  one  way  ;  they  that  reject 
eternal  punishment,  and  they  that  believe  in  it, 
they  that  deny  the  atonement,  and  they  that  re- 
cieve  it ;  they  will  all  get  to  heaven  at  last.  Ah, 
but,  said  Christian,  there  is  a  Rule,  and  I  walk 
by  it,  the  Rule  of  my  Master  ;  but  you  walk  by  the 
rude  working  of  your  own  fancies.  You  are 


HILL   DIFFICULTY.  285 

thieves  and  robbers,  by  the  Lord's  own  descrip- 
tion ;  and  as  you  come  in  by  yourselves,  without 
the  Lord's  direction,  you  will  also  go  out  by  your- 
selves, without  the  Lord's  mercy. 

This  was  a  plainness,  honesty  and  simplicity, 
characteristic  of  Christian.  But  the  men  told  him 
to  take  care  of  himself,  and  they  would  take  care 
of  themselves  ;  and  as  to  laws  and  ordinances 
they  should  keep  them  as  conscientiously  as  he ;  and 
as  to  all  his  pretence  of  inward  experience,  the 
new  birth,  repentance  and  faith,  and  all  that,  it 
might  do  for  such  a  ragged  creature  as  he  had 
been.  All  the  neighbors  knew  that  he  had  been 
a  worthless  wretch,  and  it  was  well  indeed  that  he 
had  got  such  a  coat  to  cover  his  nakedness ;  but 
they  had  always  gone  well  dressed,  and  having 
never  been  so  bad  as  he  was,  needed  not  so  great 
a  change  ;  their  laws  and  ordinances  would  save 
them.  So  Christian  told  them  that  this  inward 
experience,  this  regeneration  by  the  Holy  Spirit, 
this  faith  in  Christ  alone  as  an  atoning  Saviour, 
and  this  evidence  of  that  Saviour's  mercy  in  a 
renewed  heart  and  life,  were  as  absolutely  neces- 
sary for  them,  as  for  him,  and  that  if  they  had  come 
in  at  the  gate,  they  would  certainly  have  had 
these  things  also  ;  and  that  when  they  came  to  the 
Celestial  Gate,  they  would  be  shut  out  without 
them.  He  told  them  moreover  that  the  Lord  of 
the  place  had  given  him  that  coat  which  was  on 
his  back,  and  not  any  of  his  neighbors ;  and  that 
he  did  indeed  give  it  to  him  to  hide  his  nakedness, 
for  that  before  he  had  indeed  been  a  poor,  misera- 
ble, ragged,  guilty  sinner  ;  but  now  the  Lord  Jesus 
37 


286  CHRISTIAN    ON   THE 

had  given  him  for  his  garment  his  own  wisdom, 
righteousness,  sanctification  and  redemption,  and 
had  thus  sealed  him  by  his  grace  in  such  a  manner, 
that  he  would  know  him  well  when  he  came  to  give 
in  his  roll  at  the  Celestial  Gate.  For  all  this,  the 
men  cared  nothing  at  all,  but  looked  at  each  other 
and  laughed  ;  it  was  so  ridiculous  to  them  to  hear 
Christian  talking  of  a  new  birth,  and  of  grace  and 
faith,  and  the  love  of  the  Saviour.  All  that  cant 
may  do  very  well  for  a  conventicle,  said  they,  but 
we  abide  by  respectable  antiquity  and  the  forms  of 
our  church.  So  they  all  went  on,  and  Christian 
communed  with  himself,  seeing  that  they  both 
laughed  at  him,  and  could  not  understand  him. 
They  thought  he  was  a  harmless  mystic,  probably 
weak  in  his  mind,  and  very  illiterate.  So  he  went 
sometimes  sighingly  and  sometimes  comfortably, 
but  much  refreshed  by  reading  in  his  roll. 

Together  therefore  they  went  on,  till  they  came 
at  the  foot  of  the  Hill  Difficulty;  and  this  is  about 
as  far  as  Formalist  and  Hypocrisy  will  ever  go  in 
religion.  You  will  always  find  them  stopping  at 
the  foot  of  Hill  Difficulty.  Formalism  and  Hypo- 
crisy may  always  be  a  ridiculing  and  persecuting 
religion,  but  never  a  suffering  one.  At  the  bottom 
of  this  hill  there  were  two  other  paths  beside  the 
strait  one,  turning  off  one  to  the  left,  the  other  to 
the  right ;  and  there  always  will  be  such  paths 
where  there  are  difficulties ;  there  always  will  be 
ways,  by  which  persons  so  disposed  may  avoid 
difficulties,  and  indulge  themselves  ;  but  when 
people  turn  aside  to  go  in  them,  it  were  well  to 
note  distinctly  that  they  are  not  the  strait  and  narrow 


HILL   DIFFICULTY.  287 

way,  and  do  not  lead  to  heaven.  Over  this  Hill 
Difficulty  must  Christian  go.  But  Formalist  and 
Hypocrisy,  seeing  how  high  and  steep  it  was,  con- 
cluded between  themselves  that  these  two  con- 
venient paths,  winding  off  so  opportunely  and 
invitingly  at  the  bottom,  must  of  course  meet  again 
in  the  strait  and  narrow  way  on  the  other  side  of  the 
hill,  and  so  determined  to  try  them. 

Mark  you,  they  did  not  intend  to  quit  the  strait 
way  entirely,  into  which  they  came  at  first  by 
tumbling  over  the  wall,  bat  to  come  into  it  again, 
after  avoiding  the  Hill  Difficulty.  And  so  a  great 
many  persons  intend  to  conform  to  the  world,  or 
to  indulge  in  sinful  things  only  in  certain  points, 
only  for  the  present  distress,  and  then  come  up 
again,  just  as  a  boat  may  strike  her  sails  in 
being  under  a  bridge,  and  then  raise  them  again. 
And  a  great  many  persons  intend  to  come  at 
Heaven  without  its  costing  them  any  thing.  1 
will  not  undertake  to  say  that  if  Formalist  and 
Hypocrisy  had  known  that  these  by-paths  would 
never  come  again  into  the  right  way,  they  would 
not  have  gone  over  the  hill ;  perhaps  they  might, 
and  not  have  turned  aside  till  they  came  to  a  more 
fearful  evil.  But  Christian  saw  them  no  more. 
The  names  of  these  paths  were  Danger  and  De- 
struction, and  they  each  took  one,  and  wandered 
on  till  they  came  to  dreary  woods  and  dark  moun- 
tains, where  they  stumbled  and  fell,  and  rose  no 
more.  And  herein  was  fulfilled  that  in  the  one 
hundred  and  twenty-fifth  Psalm,  As  for  such  as 
turn  aside  into  crooked  ways,  the  Lord  shall  lead 
them  forth  with  the  workers  of  iniquity. 


288  CHRISTIAN    ON    THE 

There  was  a  cool  delicious  spring  at  the  bottom 
of  this  Hill  Difficulty,  as  there  generally  is  where 
the  Lord's  people  have  peculiar  hardships  to  en- 
counter, according  to  the  promise,  As  thy  strength 
is,  so  shall  thy  day  be.  There  are  angels  for 
Hagar  in  the  wilderness,  quails  for  Elijah  pursued 
by  his  enemies,  springs  of  water  in  the  desert, 
where,  when  God  pleases,  the  rain  shall  fill  the 
pools  to  give  drink  to  his  beloved  ones.  Unto 
whatever  conflict  or  labor  God  calls  his  people,  he 
always  gives  the  necessary  preparation  thereunto. 
So  Christian  went  and  drank  of  this  precious 
spring  at  the  bottom  of  the  Hill  Difficulty.  From 
the  eyes  of  Formality  and  Hypocrisy  it  seems  to 
have  been  kept  sealed,  or,  as  it  was  pure  cold 
water  for  a  thirsty  soul,  they,  having  no  spiritual 
thirst,  cared  not  for  it ;  but  Christian  drank  there- 
of and  was  sweetly  refreshed ;  for  God  hath  said, 
He  that  hath  mercy  on  them  shall  lead  them,  even 
by  the  springs  of  water  shall  he  guide  them.  So 
with  this  draught  of  the  water  of  life,  Christian, 
animated  and  invigorated,  addressed  himself  to 
the  hill. 

At  first  he  ran,  then  he  had  to  content  himself 
with  walking,  and  that  very  wearily  and  slowly, 
but  at  length  it  became  so  steep  that  he  was  fain 
to  clamber  up  on  his  hands  and  knees.  Some- 
times it  is  with  the  greatest  labor  and  trial,  that 
in  our  Christian  coarse  we  make  any  progress 
whatever.  We  have  to  clamber  from  duty  to  duty, 
from  prayer  to  prayer,  from  chapter  to  chapter  in 
God's  word.  It  is  like  an  invalid  climbing  the 
pyramids,  and  with  all  the  assistance  we  can  get, 


289 

it  is  slow  work.  Every  thing  within  and  without 
seems  to  be  against  us.  We  wait  upon  the  Lord, 
but  the  heart  is  still  heavy,  the  air  seems  heavy, 
and  we  do  not  mount  up  on  wings  as  eagles,  and 
though  we  walk  we  are  weary,  and  we  faint  if  we 
run.  Many  a  Christian  is  climbing  the  Hill 
Difficulty  when  you  cannot  see  his  troubles. 

But  the  Lord  does  not  forget  to  be  gracious. 
About  midway  of  the  Hill  there  was  a  pleasant 
arbor,  for  the  refreshment  of  weary  travellers, 
where  Christian  with  thankfulness  sat  down  to 
rest  him.  And  now  he  began  to  look  over  his 
evidences,  and  to  regard  with  great  comfort  and 
delight  the  garment  that  the  Shining  Ones  had 
given  him,  so  that  he  almost  forgot  that  he  was  to 
go  any  farther,  or  that  there  was  any  more  work 
for  him  to  do.  He  forgot  the  exhortation  to  grow 
in  grace,  and  in  the  knowledge  of  our  Lord  and 
Saviour,  and  to  press  forward  towards  the  mark 
for  the  prize  of  the  high  calling  of  God  in  Christ 
Jesus ;  and  he  was  so  well  satisfied  with  himself, 
his  roll,  his  robe,  his  acceptance  with  God,  that 
while  he  was  resting,  the  spirit  of  slumber  came 
over  him,  and  what  at  first  he  intended  should  only 
be  a  moment's  nap,  like  a  man  asleep  during  ser- 
mon time  in  church,  became  a  thorough  deep  sleep, 
which  endured  even  till  the  twilight ;  and  in  this 
sleep,  Christian's  roll  fell  out  of  his  hand.  Ah, 
if  the  great  adversary  had  been  there,  ill  would  it 
have  fared  then  with  poor  Christian.  He  is  fast 
asleep,  and  his  roll  has  fallen,  and  the  night  is 
coming,  and  he  is  only  half  way  up  the  hill,  and 
still  he  sleeps  on.  He  that  sleeps  is  a  loser,  says 


290  CHRISTIAN    ON    THE 

Bunyan  in  the  margin ;  that  arbor  was  never 
designed  to  sleep  in,  but  to  rest  in.  But  there  is 
One  who  watches  over  him,  who  will  not  leave 
him,  who  helpeth  our  infirmities.  This  gracious 
Being  whispered  in  his  ear,  Go  to  the  ant,  thou 
sluggard  ;  consider  her  ways  and  be  wise  !  Ay, 
that  was  a  timely  awakening  and  wrarning — so 
great  is  the  Holy  Spirit's  faithfulness  and  mercy, 
even  when  we  lose  ourselves  in  slumber. 

Christian  could  now  say,  in  that  very  striking 
verse  of  Watts,  which  those  who  have  such  a  pas- 
sion for  altering  our  familiar  hymns  to  make  them 
correspond  to  their  self-constituted  musical  judg- 
ment, have  dephlogisticated  in  the  hymn-book  : 

The  little  ants,  for  one  poor  grain, 

Labor,  and  tug,  and  strive ; 
But  we,  who  have  a  heaven  to  obtain, 

How  negligent  we  live  ! 

Awakened  thus  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  Christian 
started  up,  and  ran  as  fast  as  he  could,  not  yet 
knowing  that  he  had  lost  his  roll,  till  he   came  to 
the  top  of  the  hill.      We  sometimes  fall   into  a 
state   through  our    own    heedlessness,    in   which 
assurance  is  gone,  and  the  way  is  prepared  for 
great  gloom  and  anguish,  if  circumstances  of  trial 
come  on.     Arid  yet  we  may  run  well,  even  without 
our  roll,  so  long  as  there  is  nothing  special  to  alarm 
us.     Poor  Christian  had  to   endure  a  great  deal 
of  sorrow  by  that  indulgence  in  sleep.     As  he  was 
running  on,  Timorous  and  Mistrust  met  him,  run- 
ning full  of  terror  the  other  way.     What  is  the 
matter,  said  Christian,  you  run  the  wrong  way  ? 
Why,  said  Timorous  and  Mistrust,  the  farther  we 


HILL    DIFFICULTY.  291 

go,  the  more  danger  we  meet;  we  had  but  just 
conquered  the  Hill  Difficulty,  when  just  before 
us  we  discovered  two  lions  in  the  way  ;  so  we 
turned,  and  are  hurrying  back  as  fast  as  possible. 
With  that  they  ran  down  the  hill. 

Now  was  Christian  himself  greatly  afraid,  for 
there  is  nothing  so  takes  away  the  courage  as  the 
consciousness  of  guilt ;  and  Christian,  on  feeling 
for  his  roll,  that  he  might  have  that  to  comfort  and 
sustain  him  amidst  these  dangers,  found  that  he 
had  lost  it.  And  now  what  should  he  do  1  What 
had  become  of  it  'I  Examining  himself  on  this 
point,  he  remembered  that  he  had  slept  in  the  arbor, 
and  then  at  once  falling  on  his  knees,  he  asked  of 
God  forgiveness  for  that  foolish  sleep,  and  then  with 
great  heaviness  and  sorrow  of  heart  went  back  to 
look  for  his  roll.  Thus,  when  the  Holy  Spirit 
brings  to  mind  the  sins  of  the  Christian,  as  he 
is  asking  himself  why  he  has  so  little  heavenly  evi- 
dence, there  is  no  way  for  him  to  do  but  to  seek  for- 
giveness, confessing  his  guilt.  But  it  is  a  fearful 
thing,  when  the  night  comes  on,  when  danger  and 
perhaps  death  are  drawing  near,  and  you  need  all 
the  comfort,  consolation  and  support  that  you  can 
possibly  derive  from  a  good  hope  in  Christ,  to  find 
that  that  hope  is  gone  from  the  soul,  to  find 
darkness  where  there  ought  to  be  light. 

It  is  not  to  be  doubted  that  Bunyan  was  writing 
this  experience  of  Christian  out  of  his  own  heart ; 
it  is  almost  the  counterpart  of  his  own  inward  trials 
about  the  time  of  his  commitment  to  prison,  when 
you  will  remember  there  was  great  gloom  upon  his 
soul,  and  the  things  of  God  were  hidden  from  him, 


292  CHRISTIAN    ON   THE 

and  neither  sun  nor  stars  appeared  for  many  days. 
Then  there  were  dreadful  lions  in  the  way,  nor 
could  he  see  that  they  were  chained  ;  then  he  felt 
afraid  to  die,  because  he  had  no  spiritual  comfort. 
Bunyan  resolved  to  die  for  Christ,  whether  comfort 
came  or  not,  whether  he  found  his  roll  or  did  not 
find  it.  But  Christian  could  not  go  on  without  his 
roll.  Oh  how  did  he  chide  himself  for  being  so 
foolish  as  to  fall  asleep  in  that  place,  which  was 
erected  only  for  a  little  refreshment  of  his  weari- 
ness. When  he  came  back  to  the  arbor,  the  very 
sight  of  it  renewed  his  sorrow  and  shame  for  that 
foolish  sleep  in  the  day-time  and  in  the  midst  of 
difficulty ;  that  he  should  have  used  that  arbor  of 
rest  for  ease  to  the  flesh,  which  the  Lord  of  the  hill 
had  erected  only  for  the  relief  of  the  spirits  of  the 
Pilgrims.  Alas,  cried  he,  that  I  should  have  to 
tread  those  steps  with  sorrow,  and  thrice  over, 
which  I  might  have  trodden  but  once,  and  with 
delight  1  This  is  what  Christians  are  often  doing, 
and  this  evil  is  certainly  a  great  one,  of  using  for 
Indulgence  and  ease  to  the  flesh  what  God  has 
given  us  to  minister  to  the  advancement  of  our 
spirits.  We  are  not  anxious  enough  to  be  making 
progress  towards  heaven  ;  we  are  too  fond  of  com- 
fort, and  too  averse  from  labor. 

Oh,  said  Christian,  that  I  had  not  slept !  Oh 
that  God  would  have  mercy  on  me  !  And  now  the 
fifty-first  Psalm  came  into  his  mind,  and  he  cried 
out  with  David,  Cast  me  not  away  from  thy  pre- 
sence, and  take  not  thy  Holy  Spirit  from  me.  Re- 
store unto  me  the  joy  of  thy  salvation,  and  uphold 
me  with  thy  free  Spirit ;  then  will  I  teach  trans- 


HILL    DIFFICULTY.  293 

gressors  thy  ways,  and  sinners  shall  be  converted 
unto  thee.  But  oh,  thought  Christian,  without  my 
roll  I  can  never  have  the  heart  to  speak  to  another 
person  as  long  as  I  live.  What  shall  I  do  1  what 
shall  I  do  ?  He  knew  now  that  it  was  an  evil  and 
bitter  thing  to  depart  from  the  living  God  ;  yea,  this 
experience  was  as  dreadful  to  him  as  that  under 
Mount  Sinai.  Yea,  says  Doddridge,  in  his  Rise 
and  Progress  of  Religion  in  the  Soul,  the  anguish 
of  broken  bones  is  not  to  be  compared  with  the 
wretchedness  of  a  soul  that  has  departed  from  God, 
when  it  comes  to  be  filled  with  its  own  way.  Oh 
that  God  would  have  mercy  upon  me,  said  Christian. 
Make  me  to  hear  joy  and  gladness,  that  the  bones 
which  thou  hast  broken  may  rejoice.  Hide  thy  face 
from  my  sins,  and  blot  out  all  mine  iniquities.  Cre- 
ate in  me  a  clean  heart,  O  God,  and  renew  a  right 
spirit  within  me ! 

Oh  that  I  knew  where  I  might  find  him,  said 
Christian.  Behold,  I  go  forward,  but  he  is  not 
there  ;  and  backward,  but  I  cannot  perceive  him. 
This  must  always  be  the  case,  when  a  child  of  God 
departs  from  God  ;  and  if  it  be  not  so,  then  there 
is  great  reason  to  believe  that  the  person  so  wan- 
dering, and  yet  not  troubled  on  account  of  it,  is 
not  a  child  of  God.  If  Christian  had  said  within 
himself,  when  he  found  his  roll  was  missing,  Well, 
it  is  not  essential,  or  I  shall  find  it  again  by  and 
by,  and  so  had  gone  on,  indifferent  and  easy,  it 
had  been  enough  to  show  that  either  he  was  not 
Christian,  or  that  much  sorer  evil  awaited  him, 
and  sharper  discipline  to  bring  him  to  repentance. 
But  he  could  not  go  on  in  this  manner,  his  con- 


294  CHRISTIAN  ON  THE 

science  was  too  tender,  and  his  sense  of  divine 
things  too  vivid ;  and  so  the  sorrows  of  death 
compassed  him,  and  the  pains  of  hell  gat  hold 
upon  him  ;  he  found  trouble  and  sorrow ;  and 
back  did  he  go,  weeping  and  looking  for  his  roll, 
and  crying,  O  Lord,  I  beseech  thee  deliver  my  soul. 
Now  God  sees  all  this  in  his  children,  and  per- 
mits them  to  endure  this  distress,  that  they  may 
gain  a  lesson  from  it,  which  will  last  them  as  long 
as  they  live.  But  he  knows  what  he  does  unto 
them,  and  just  what  they  need.  When  my  spirit 
was  overwhelmed  within  me,  then  thou  knewest 
my  way.  And  just  so,  when  Christian  had  well 
nigh  given  up  in  despair,  and  was  sitting  himself 
down  to  weep,  disconsolate  and  broken-hearted,  as 
kind  Providence  would  have  it,  looking  through  his 
tears  beneath  the  settle,  there  he  espied  the  roll,  and 
with  what  trembling,  eager  haste  did  he  catch  it  up 
and  secure  it  again  in  his  bosom  !  Oh,  who  can  tell 
how  joyful  he  was  when  he  had  gotten  his  roll  again ! 
And  now  returning  thanks  to  God  for  directing  his 
eye  to  the  place  where  it  lay,  (and  ever  should  the 
Christian  who  has  been  wandering  from  God,  and 
so  has  gotten  into  darkness,  be  thankful  for  the 
least  ray  of  returning  light,  and  ever  will  he,  for  no 
deliverance  is  so  grateful  to  the  soul  as  that,) 
Christian  did  with  joy  and  tears  betake  himself 
again  to  his  journey.  But  he  had  lost  a  great  deal 
of  time,  and  it  was  now  growing  dark,  and  now 
he  began  again  to  think  of  what  Mistrust  and 
Timorous  had  told  him  about  the  lions,  a  thing 
which  his  misery  in  the  loss  of  his  roll  had  driven 
at  first  from  his  mind,  just  as  great  griefs  medicine 


HILL    DIFFICULTY.  295 

me  less.  Now,  said  Christian  to  himself,  these 
beasts  range  abroad  in  the  night  for  their  prey,  and 
if  I  should  meet  them  in  the  dark,  how  should  I 
escape  being  torn  in  pieces? 

So  he  went  on,  troubling  himself  greatly  with  these 
thoughts,  when  suddenly  there  rose  before  him  like 
a  dream  a  very  stately  palace,  close  by  the  highway 
side,  which  being  within  the  walls  of  salvation,  and 
directly  where  he  must  pass  by,  he  knew  to  belong 
to  the  Lord  of  the  way,  and  therefore  to  the  Pil- 
grims ;  or  at  any  rate  that  the  Pilgrims  would  there 
be  welcome.  Now  if  he  might  get  to  that  palace, 
and  be  lodged  there,  he  would  care  little  for  the 
lions ;  but  as  he  went  forward  towards  the  narrow 
passage  which  led  up  to  the  gate,  being  very 
closely  on  the  watch  to  see  the  lions  of  Mistrust 
and  Timorous'  description,  there  they  were,  sure 
enough,  grim  and  terrible;  arid  now  he  thought  of 
going  back,  but  the  porter  cried  out  to  him,  re- 
proving him  for  his  want  of  strength  and  faith, 
and  telling  him  that  the  lions  were  chained,  and 
were  suffered  to  be  there  to  try  the  faith  of  pil- 
grims, if  they  had  it,  and  to  discover  if  they  had 
none.  With  this  was  Christian  greatly  encou- 
raged ;  but  with  all  this  he  went  trembling  and 
afraid,  and  keeping  to  the  middle  of  the  path  ;  and 
though  he  heard  the  lions  roar  on  him,  yet  they 
did  him  no  harm,  and  when  he  got  passed  them  he 
clapped  his  hands,  and  made  haste  up  to  the 
porter  at  the  entrance  to  the  Palace  Beautiful. 
May  I  lodge  here  to-night  ?  said  he.  So  he  was 
told  that  the  Lord  of  the  Hill  himself  had  built  this 
house  for  the  relief  and  security  of  pilgrims.  The 


296  CHRISTIAN    ON    THE 

porter  asked  Christian  several  questions,  as  who 
he  was,  and  where  from,  and  what  was  his  name, 
and  whither  he  was  going,  and  why  he  came  so 
late,  all  which  interrogatories  Christian  ingenu- 
ously answered,  especially  the  last,  confessing  his 
sinful,  sorrowful  sleep. 

There  are  some  important  lessons  to  be  learned 
from  this  Hill  Difficulty,  as  first,  the  folly  of  think- 
ing to  gain  heaven  without  trouble  and  self-denial. 
In  nothing  else  in  this  world  do  men  ever  act 
on  this  principle.  If  there  be  any  great  thing  to 
be  gained  in  this  life,  all  men  are  sure  that  it 
is  going  to  cost  great  effort,  and  they  are  ready  to 
make  such  effort ;  nor  is  it  a  light  thing  that  will 
turn  them  aside.  They  will  go  up  a  Hill  Difficulty, 
without  drinking  at  any  spring  but  that  of  their  own 
sanguine  expectation,  and  without  deigning  to  rest 
in  any  arbor  by  the  way,  much  more  without  losing 
time  by  sleeping  in  it.  And  if  there  be  lions  in 
the  way,  they  will  go  at  them  at  once  ;  yea,  if  a 
loaded  cannon  stood  in  their  path,  and  a  bag  of 
gold  beyond  it,  or  the  cup  of  sinful  pleasure,  they 
would  go  on.  If  there  be  mountains  which  they 
cannot  overtop,  they  will  dig  through  them ;  and 
they  will  suffer  days  of  weariness  and  nights  of 
pain,  they  will  make  long  pilgrimages,  will  expa- 
triate themselves  for  years,  and  suffer  banishment 
from  families,  friends,  firesides,  into  strange  lands, 
will  cross  oceans,  and  encounter  perils  of  every 
name  and  shape,  to  accomplish  and  realize  the 
object  of  their  earthly  ambition ;  and  after  all, 
what  is  it  1  A  dream,  a  straw,  a  bauble,  a  flake  of 
foam  on  the  surface  of  a  river.  They  pluck  it,  it 


HILL   DIFFICULTY.  297 

is  gone,  and  they  are  gone  with  it.  While  they 
snatch  at  it  they  pass  into  eternity,  and  death 
finishes  their  plans  forever. 

But  even  the  poor  things  they  seek  for  in  this 
life,  they  do  not  expect  to  gain  without  labor. 
And  shall  we  expect  to  gain  heaven  without  labor  1 
Is  not  heaven  worth  laboring  after  1  And  is  it  not 
the  part  of  wisdom  so  to  run  not  as  uncertainly,  so 
to  fight,  not  as  one  that  beateth  the  air  ?  Now  we 
ought  soberly  to  say,  I  expect  difficulties,  and  I 
mean,  by  God'§  grace,  not  to  be  discouraged  when 
I  meet  with  them.  They  are,  in  truth,  the  very 
means  which  God  must  use  for  my  discipline.  It 
is  only  by  meeting  and  overcoming  them  that  I  can 
be  fitted  for  heaven.  And  as  to  the  dangers  in 
the  way,  the  best  way  of  safety  from  them  is  to 
come  up  boldly  to  them.  If  we  stand  afar  off  and 
tremble,  they  seem  much  greater  than  they  are.  If 
we  march  strait  on,  confiding  in  Christ,  we  always 
find  that  the  lions  are  chained,  and  can  only  roar 
at  us,  and  do  no  harm.  At  all  events,  it  is  better 
to  go  forward  than  backward.  Be  not  like  Mis- 
trust and  Timorous.  It  is  more  dangerous  to  run 
down  the  Hill  Difficulty  than  to  clamber  up. 
And  he  that  putteth  his  hand  to  the  plough  and 
looketh  back,  is  not  fit  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

We  see  here,  likewise,  the  repetition  of  that 
lesson  that  nothing  is  so  hard  to  bear  as  a  wound 
ed  conscience,  a  mind  not  at  peace  with  God. 
There  is  nothing  so  hard  for  the  Christian  to  bear 
as  that ;  and  when  the  light  of  God's  countenance 
is  hidden  from  him  by  reason  of  sin,  be  you  sure 
that  there  is  not  a  creature  in  the  world  so  misera- 


298       CHRISTIAN    ON    THE    HILL    DIFFICULTY. 

ble  as  he.  But  if  sin  and  conscience  can  make 
him  so  miserable,  who  has  only  fallen  for  a  season 
into  its  power,  as  Christian  did  in  the  arbor,  and 
who  has  a  Saviour  to  go  to,  and  will  go  to  him, 
and  stay  at  the  foot  of  the  cross  even  amidst  the 
darkness,  what  work  must  it  make  in  that  man's 
soul  who  never  asked  forgiveness,  never  went  to 
Christ — what  work  will  it  make,  when  sin  and 
conscience,  long  hidden,  concealed,  sleeping,  are 
developed,  roused  up  and  busy  in  the  soul  ?  Oh, 
if  the  fire  that  is  thus  kindled  begins  to  be  noticed 
first,  not  until  the  soul  enters  on  the  eternal  world, 
then  it  will  never  go  out.  So  beware  how  you 
have  conscience  for  an  enemy. 

O  Conscience  !  who  can  stand  before  thy  power  ! 
Endure  thy  gripes  and  agonies  one  hour  ? 
Stone,  gout,  strappado,  racks,  whatever  is 
Dreadful  to  sense,  are  only  toys  to  this. 
No  pleasures,  riches,  honors,  friends  can  tell 
How  to  give  ease  in  this  : — 'tis  like  to  hell. 

Call  for  the  pleasant  timbrel,  lute,  and  harp : 
Alas !  the  music  howls  !    The  pain 's  too  sharp 
For  these  to  charm,  divert,  or  lull  asleep: 
These  cannot  reach  it ;  as  the  wound 's  too  deep. 
Let  all  the  promises  before  it  stand, 
And  set  a  Barnabas  at  its  right  hand ; 
These  in  themselves  no  comfort  can  afford, 
"Tis  Christ,  and  none  but  Christ,  can  speak  the  word. 
There  goes  a  power  with  his  Majestic  Voice, 
To  hush  the  raging  storm,  and  charm  its  noise. 
Who  but  would  fear  and.  love  and  do  his  will, 
Who  bids  such  tempests  of  the  soul  be  still ! 

FLATIL. 


CHRISTIAN'S  FIGHT  WITH  APOLLYON 

IN  THE 

VALLEY  OF  HUMILIATION. 


Conversation  with  Discretion,  Prudence,  Piety  and  Charity.— Blessedness  of  Chrta- 
tian  Communion. — Too  much  sometimes  anticipated. — Danger  of  making 
Church-membership  salvation. — Preparation  for  the  Christian  Conflict — Apoll- 
yon's  assault  upon  Christian. — The  fiery  darts  of  the  Wicked  One. — Entering 
into  temptation. — Christian's  passage  through  this  valley  compared  with  the 
experience  of  Christiana,  Mercy,  and  the  children. — Pleasantness  and  grace  of  the 
Valley  of  Humiliation  to  a  contented  and  submissive  mind. 

WE  left  Christian,  delivered  from  his  dangers, 
and  relieved  from  his  distresses  for  a  season,  at 
the  Gate  of  the  House  Beautiful.  But  you  will 
observe  that  the  porter  does  not  admit  him  at  once, 
nor  without  inquiry.  According  to  the  rules  of 
the  house,  Watchful,  the  porter,  rings  the  bell  and 
commends  Christian  to  the  interrogatories  of  a 
grave  and  beautiful  damsel,  called  Discretion.  A 
number  of  questions  were  put  to  him,  and  sin- 
cerely answered,  and  so  much  affectionate  kind- 
ness and  sympathy  were  manifested  on  the  part  of 
Discretion,  that  Christian  had  nothing  to  fear  as 
to  his  reception.  Then  Discretion  called  for  Pru- 
dence, Piety,  and  Charity,  and  after  this  conversa- 
tion, they  welcomed  him  into  the  household  of 

39 


300      CHRISTIAN'S  FIGHT  WITH  APOLLYON 

Faith.  There,  during  his  delightful  abode  with 
its  happy  inmates,  he  was  entertained,  as  the 
Lord  of  the  way  had  provided  that  all  pilgrims 
should  be  in  his  house,  with  the  most  cordial 
hospitality  and  love.  He  was  instructed  with 
much  godly  conversation,  and  with  many  edifying 
sights,  and  he  was  clad  in  a  complete  suit  of 
armor,  to  prepare  him  against  the  dangers  of  the 
future  way.  On  his  part,  he  entertained  the 
household  as  much  as  they  did  him,  by  the  account 
he  gave  of  his  own  experience  thus  far.  Piety 
made  him  tell  all  that  had  happened  in  his  pil- 
grimage from  his  first  setting  out  to  his  arrival  at 
the  House  Beautiful.  Prudence  asked  him  about 
his  feelings  now  in  reference  to  the  land  of  his 
nativity,  and  the  habits  he  used  to  be  in  at  the 
City  of  Destruction. 

And  here  Bunyan  has  left  us  in  no  doubt  as  to 
his  own  views  in  the  exposition  of  the  controverted 
passage  in  the  seventh  of  Romans.  He  shows 
clearly  that  he  regards  the  experience  there  re- 
corded as  a  description  of  the  conflict  between 
good  and  evil  still  going  forward  in  the  Christian's 
soul.  "  Do  you  not,"  asked  Piety,  "  still  bear 
with  you  some  of  those  things  that  you  were 
conversant  withal  in  the  City  of  Destruction  '?" 
"  Might  I  but  choose  mine  own  things,"  answered 
Christian,  "  I  would  choose  never  to  think  of 
those  things  more  ;  but  when  I  would  do  good, 
evil  is  present  with  me."  Bunyan  was  too  deeply 
experienced  in  the  evils  of  the  human  heart,  too 
severely  had  been  disciplined  with  the  fiery  darts 
of  the  Wicked  One,  to  suffer  his  Christian  to  make 


IN    THE   VALLEY    OF    HUMILIATION.  301 

any  pretence  whatever  to  perfection.  Too  sadly 
did  Christian  find  within  himself  the  struggle 
between  nature  and  grace,  to  suffer  him  to  fall  into 
any  such  dream  or  delusion.  He  made  no  pre- 
tence to  have  conquered  all  sin,  or  got  superior 
to  it ;  but  his  trust  was  in  Christ ;  and  his  su- 
preme desire  was  after  holiness.  "  But  do  you 
not  find  sometimes,"  said  Prudence,  "  as  if  those 
things  were  vanquished,  which  at  other  times  are 
your  perplexity  ?"  "  Yes,"  said  Christian,  "  but 
that  is  but  seldom ;  but  they  are  to  me  golden 
hours,  in  which  such  things  happen  to  me." 
Prudence  then  asked  him  how  it  was,  by  what 
means  he  ever  succeeded  in  vanquishing  his  ene- 
mies and  getting  free  from  the  disturbers  of  his 
peace  ? 

Christian's  answer  is  very  beautiful.  "When  I 
think  what  I  saw  at  the  cross,  that  will  do  it ;  and 
when  I  look  upon  my  broidered  coat,  that  will  do 
it ;  and  when  I  look  at  my  roll  that  I  carry  in  my 
bosom,  that  will  do  it ;  and  when  my  thoughts  wax 
warm  about  whither  I  am  going,  that  will  do  it.*1 
Ah  yes,  it  is  the  cross,  by  which  we  conquer  sin  ; 
it  is  the  remembrance  of  Him  who  hung  upon  it. 
And  he  that  hath  this  hope  in  him,  purifieth  him- 
self as  he  is  pure.  And  having  these  evidences 
and  these  promises,  faith  gets  the  better  of  inward 
corruptions,  and  overcomes  also  the  world.  Nor, 
lastly,  is  there  any  thing  more  powerful  to  give  us 
the  victory  over  sin,  than  a  clear  view  of  heavenly 
realities,  warm  thoughts  about  the  heaven  to  which 
we  are  going,  visions  of  Mount  Zion  above,  and 
the  innumerable  company  of  angels,  and  Jesus 


302      CHRISTIAN'S  FIGHT  WITH  APOLLYON 

the  Mediator,  and  the  assurance  that  we  shall  be 
like  him,  for  we  shall  see  him  as  he  is.  There  is 
no  death  there,  nor  sin,  nor  weariness,  nor  disorder ; 
and  the  Christian  is  weary  of  his  inward  sickness, 
and  would  fain  be  where  he  shall  sin  no  more, 
and  with  the  company  that  shall  continually  cry, 
Holy,  Holy,  Holy ! 

After  this,  Charity  in  like  manner  conversed 
with  Christian,  and  all  the  while  they  were  at 
table  their  talk  was  only  of  the  Lord  of  the  hill, 
and  all  his  grace  and  glory,  and  what  he  had  done 
and  suffered  for  them,  and  all  his  amazing  endless 
love  to  poor  pilgrims,  and  his  tender  care  in  build* 
ing  that  house  for  them  ;  and  so  they  discoursed 
even  till  late  at  night,  for  how  could  they  ever  be 
wearied  with  such  a  theme  !  And  how  did  Chris- 
tian's heart  burn  within  him  as  they  spake  of  his 
Saviour's  love,  and  suffering,  and  glory !  It  may 
remind  us  of  the  poet  Cowper's  exquisitely  beau- 
tiful description  of  the  conversation  in  the  walk  to 
Emmaus. 

Ah,  theirs  was  converse  such  as  it  behooves 
Man  to  maintain,  and  such  as  God  approves. 
Christ  and  his  character  their  only  scope, 
Their  subject,  and  their  object,  and  their  hope. 
The  recollection,  like  a  vein  of  ore, 
The  farther  traced,  enriched  them  still  the  more. 
O  days  of  heaven,  and  nights  of  equal  praise, 
Serene  and  peaceful  as  those  heavenly  days 
When  souls  drawn  upwards  in  communion  sweet, 
Enjoy  the  stillness  of  some  close  retreat, 
Discourse,  as  if  released  and  safe  at  home, 
Of  dangers  past,  and  wonders  yet  to  come, 
And  spread  the  sacred  treasures  of  the  breast 
Upon  the  lap  of  covenanted  rest ! 

This  was  a  heavenly  evening  for  Christian,  a 
season  of  blessedness  long  to  be  remembered, 


IN   THE    VALLEY    OF    HUMILIATION.  303 

and  to  walk  in  the  strength  of  it.  They  closed 
their  hours  of  sacred  converse  with  the  sweetness 
of  family  prayer,  and  then  betook  themselves  to 
rest ;  the  Pilgrim  they  laid  in  a  large  upper  cham- 
ber, whose  window  opened  towards  the  sunrising ; 
the  name  of  the  chamber  was  Peace,  where  he 
slept  till  break  of  day,  and  then  he  awoke  and 
sang. 

Now,  after  all  this,  can  any  be  at  a  loss  to  un- 
derstand the  meaning  of  the  House  Beautiful,  or 
that  era  in  the  life  of  the  Pilgrim  at  which  Christian 
had  arrived  ?  We  think  every  one  will  see  drawn  . 
in  these  symbols,  with  great  beauty  and  delightful-  ' 
ness  of  coloring,  the  institution  and  ordinances  of 
the  visible  church  of  Christ  on  earth ;  the  fellow- 
ship and  divinely  blest  communion,  the  mutual 
instruction  and  edification,  the  happiness,  hopes, 
promises,  foretastes,  enjoyments,  growth  in  grace, 
and  preparation  for  usefulness,  peculiar  to  this 
sacred  heavenly  kingdom,  belonging  to  the  body  of 
Christ,  and  growing  out  of  a  right  use  of  its  precious 
privileges. 

Tis  a  sweet  tie  that  binds 

Our  hearts  in  Christian  love, 
The  fellowship  of  kindred  minds 

Is  like  to  that  above. 

This  was  indeed  to  Christian  something  like 
the  Mount  of  Transfiguration  ;  it  was  good  to  be 
there.  It  was  like  the  day  after  those  six  days 
when  Jesus  took  Peter  and  James  and  John,  and 
went  up  into  a  mountain  alone,  and  was  trans- 
figured before  them.  Bunyan  himself  had  found 
such  a  season,  about  the  time  when  he  united  with 


304       CHRISTIAN'S  FIGHT  WITH  APOLLYON 

the  church  of  Christ  in  Bedford,  and  this  glory  and 
refreshing  comfort  continued  with  him  many 
weeks,  and  his  own  feelings  were  like  those  of 
Peter.  And  Peter  answered  and  said  to  Jesus, 
Master,  It  is  good  for  us  to  be  here,  and  let  us 
make  three  tabernacles,  one  for  thee,  and  one  for 
Moses,  and  one  for  Elias.  For  he  wist  not  what 
to  say,  for  he  was  sore  afraid.  And  there  was 
a  cloud  overshadowed  them,  and  a  voice  came 
out  of  the  cloud,  saying,  This  is  my  beloved  Son, 
hear  him.  "  Then  I  saw,"  says  Bunyan,  "  that 
Moses  and  Elias  must  both  vanish,  and  leave 
Christ  and  his  saints  alone."  Mount  Zion  also 
was  set  before  Bunyan,  and  his  heart  wandered 
up  and  down  as  in  a  labyrinth  of  glory,  through 
the  shining  mazes  of  that  passage,  "  Ye  are  come 
to  Mount  Zion,  to  the  city  of  the  living  God,  to 
the  heavenly  Jerusalem,  and  to  an  innumerable 
company  of  angels,  to  the  general  assembly  and 
church  of  the  first-born,  which  are  written  in 
heaven ;  to  God,  the  Judge  of  all,  and  to  the 
spirits  of  just  men  made  perfect ;  and  to  Jesus,  the 
Mediator  of  the  New  Testament,  and  to  the  blood 
of  sprinkling,  that  speaketh  better  things  than  that 
of  Abel."  "  Through  this  sentence,"  says  Bunyan, 
"  the  Lord  led  me  over  and  over  again  ;  first,  to 
this  word,  and  then  to  that;  and  showed  me  won- 
derful glory  in  every  one  of  them.  These  words 
also  have  oft  since  that  time  been  a  great  refresh- 
ment to  my  spirit."  It  was  in  the  memory  of  such 
experience  that  Bunyan  composed  his  description 
of  Christian's  entertainment  in  the  House  Beau- 
tiful. 


IN   THE    VALLEY    OF    HUMILIATION.  305 

It  is  not,  indeed,  always  the  case  that  pilgrims 
find  their  anticipations  realized  in  entering  that 
house.  Sometimes,  it  may  be,  because  they  ex- 
pected miracles  from  it,  because  they  relied  more 
upon  it  than  upon  Christ,  because  they  expected 
from  an  ordinance  what  is  only  to  be  got  from 
grace,  or  because  they  came  to  it  without  that  dis- 
cipline of  spirit  in  prayer,  and  that  previous  lowly 
walk  with  God,  and  that  dwelling  at  the  foot  of 
the  cross,  which  is  requisite.  But  you  will  ob-  >\ 
serve  that  this  house  is  put  quite  far  on  the  way ; 
it  is  obvious  that  Bunyan  would  not  have  his  pil- 
grims enter  the  House  Beautiful  so  soon  as  they 
get  within  the  Wicket  Gate  ;  between  the  Wicket 
Gate  and  the  House  Beautiful,  between  the  cross 
of  Christ  and  the  visible  communion  of  saints, 
there  was  much  experience,  much  instruction, 
much  discipline,  much  difficulty,  much  grace. 
Infinitely  less  would  Bunyan  have  put  the  visible 
church,  the  House  Beautiful  before  the  Wicket 
Gate,  making  church-membership  the  door  of 
heaven,  as  some  would  do,  to  the  destruction  of 
multitudes  of  souls.  Baptismal  regeneration  and 
salvation  by  the  Lord's  supper  are  two  of  the  most 
unscriptural,  ungodly,  and  pernicious  figments,  with 
which  Satan  ever  succeeded  in  lulling  men  to 
security  in  their  sins.  Bunyan  was  so  cautious 
of  every  thing  like  this,  he  had  so  much  experience 
in  his  own  heart  of  the  dangerous,  damning  nature 
of  a  religion  of  forms,  and  he  knew  so  well  the 
wiles  of  Satan  in  that  way,  and  the  tendency  of 
men,  however  warned  and  instructed,  to  rest  in 
forms,  that  he  almost  went  to  the  contrary 


806       CHRISTIAN'S  FIGHT  WITH  APOLLYON 

extreme.  He  made  one  of  his  best  pilgrims,  as  we 
shall  see,  go  past  the  House  Beautiful  without 
stopping  at  it.  You  may  be  sure  this  was  because 
in  Bunyan's  time  there  was  such  a  hue  and  cry 
after  the  church,  with  its  glory,  and  exclusive  pri- 
vileges and  forms,  its  baptism,  prayer-book,  bench 
of  bishops,  and  no  salvation  beyond.  So  he  made 
his  Martyr-Pilgrim  belong  to  no  visible  church  at 
all ;  nor  could  he  more  quietly  and  powerfully 
have  rebuked  and  resisted  the  fatal  error  that  to 
enter  the  House  Beautiful  is  to  save  the  soul,  nor 
the  wicked  intolerance,  that  would  restrict  salva- 
tion to  membership  and  obedience  in  the  Church  of 
England. 

It  is  well  to  remark  here  that  the  House  Beau- 
tiful stands  beside  the  road  ;  it  does  not  cross  it,  so 
as  to  make  the  strait  and  narrow  way  run  through 
it,  so  as  that  there  is  no  possibility  of  continuing  in 
that  way  without  passing  through  it.  This  would 
have  been  to  make  a  union  with  the  visible  church 
necessary  to  salvation ;  and  the  next  step  after 
this,  and  a  very  natural  consequence  of  it,  is  that 
of  making  salvation  an  essential  property  of 
church  membership,  that  of  making  every  member 
of  the  church  a  saved  man ;  and  the  next  step, 
and  quite  as  natural,  is  that  of  making  a  particular 
church  the  only  church,  THE  church,  to  the  exclu- 
sion of  all  others  ;  and  the  next  step,  and  also 
very  natural,  is  the  excommunication  of  all  dis- 
senters, and  the  application  of  such  penalties  and 
persecutions  as  may  benevolently  operate  to  keep 
men  from  wandering  to  the  ruin  of  their  souls,  into 
conventicles  ;  such  penalties  and  persecutions  as 


IN    THE    VALLEY    OF    HUMILIATION.  307 

may,  with  loving  force,  and  out  of  pure  regard  to 
the  salvation  of  souls,  and  pure  compassion  to 
those  who  are  wandering  from  their  Holy  Mother 
Church,  compel  them  to  come  in,  that  there  may  be 
one  visible  fold  and  one  Shepherd. 

Now  had  this  been  the  case  with  the  House 
Beautiful,  there  would  have  been  guards  posted, 
and  prisons  erected,  all  along  the  way,  to  arrest 
self-willed  dissenters,  and  bring  them  back  into  the 
house,  saying  to  them,  You  are  not  permitted  to 
be  on  the  way  to  heaven,  unless  you  go  through 
the  House  Beautiful.  There  you  must  pay  tithes, 
for  it  costs  the  servants  of  the  Lord  of  the  way  a 
great  deal  to  keep  up  this  Establishment,  and  you, 
under  pretence  of  being  a  dissenter  and  yet  a 
Christian,  are  not  to  be  suffered  to  pass  without 
paying  toll  at  this  Establishment.  This  would  be 
the  House  Shameful  and  not  the  House  Beautiful. 
It  would  be  the  house  of  pride,  ambition,  arrogance 
and  persecution  ;  and  not  the  house  of  love.  But 
blessed  be  God,  there  is  no  such  house  on  the  way 
of  our  pilgrimage.  They  arrested  John  Bunyan 
and  threw  him  into  prison,  because  he  chose  not  to 
enter  that  house,  but  to  worship  with  God's  people 
among  the  Baptists. 

The  communion  of  saints  was  never  more 
sweetly  depicted,  than  in  Christian's  sojourning 
in  the  House  Beautiful.  '  But  he  staid  not  there 
for  pleasure  ;  that  was  not  the  end  of  his  journey, 
nor  the  object  of  it ;  nor  did  he  there,  as  in  the 
Arbor,  use  for  an  indulgence  to  the  flesh  what  was 
meant  for  the  encouragement  and  refreshment  of 
the  spirit.  He  was  up  by  day-break  singing  and 
40 


308       CHRISTIAN'S  FIGHT  WITH  APOLLYON 

praying,  and  then  they  had  him  into  the  study,  to 
show  him  the  rarities  of  the  place  ;  and  the  next 
day  into  the  armory,  to  show  him  all  manner  of 
warlike  furniture,  which  the  Lord  of  the  way  had 
provided  for  pilgrims,  where  also  he  was  made  to 
see  ancient  things,  which,  if  Bunyan  could  be  here 
to  interpret,  he  would  doubtless  tell  us  were  in- 
tended to  symbolize  that  divine  grace  by  which 
the  servants  of  the  Lord  have  done  so  many  won- 
derful things,  that  grace  which,  though  to  the 
world  and  the  Goliahs  in  it,  it  looks  as  foolish  as 
David's  sling  and  pebble  stones  against  a  giant 
in  full  armor,  is  yet  stronger  than  death,  and  shall 
overcome  every  thing  ;  for  the  foolishness  of  God 
is  wiser  than  men,  and  the  weakness  of  God  is 
stronger  than  men.  And  the  next  day  they  showed 
him  from  the  top  of  the  house  a  far  off  view  of 
the  Delectable  Mountains,  Immanuel's  land,  woods, 
vineyards,  fruits,  flowers,  springs  and  fountains, 
where  from  the  mountain  summits  they  told  him  he 
should  see  the  gate  of  the  Celestial  City.  Faith, 
said  they  to  Christian,  is  the  substance  of  things 
hoped  for,  the  evidence  of  things  not  seen  ;  and 
the  afflictions  you  meet  with  by  the  way  will  be  but 
light  things  to  you,  if  you  keep  the  glories  of 
heaven  in  your  mind's  eye,  and  the  thoughts  of 
what  you  are  to  meet  with  there  warm  in  your 
heart. 

I  love,  by  faith,  to  take  a  view 

Of  brighter  tilings  in  heaven ; 
Such  prospects  oft  my  strength  renew 

When  here  by  tempests  driven. 

This  view  Christian  could  enjoy  with  increasing 


IN   THE    VALLEY   OF    HUMILIATION.  309 

clearness,  and  found  more  and  more  the  blessed- 
ness of  it,  the  nearer  he  came  to  the  Celestial  City. 
For  God,  he  could  say, 

For  God  has  breathed  upon  a  worm, 

And  given  me  from  above, 
Wings  such  as  clothe  an  angel's  form, 

The  wings  of  joy  and  love. 
With  these  to  Pisgah's  top  I  fly, 

And  there  delighted  stand, 
To  view  beneath  a  shining  sky, 

The  spacious,  promised  land. 
The  Lord  of  all  the  vast  domain 

Has  promised  it  to  me, 
The  length  and  breadth  of  all  the  plain, 

As  far  as  faith  can  see. 

. 

So  when  they  had  had  much  pleasant  and  profitable 
discourse  with  him,  as  Christian  was  eager  to  go 
on,  they  would  detain  him  no  longer,  but  had  him 
again  into  the  armory,  where  they  clothed  him 
from  head  to  foot  in  the  armor  of  righteousness 
on  the  right  hand  and  on  the  left,  sword,  shield, 
helmet,  breastplate,  all-prayer,  and  shoes  that 
would  not  wear  out,  according  to  faithful  Paul's 
directions.  "  Put  on  the  whole  armor  of  God,  that 
ye  may  be  able  to  stand  against  the  wiles  of  the 
devil.  For  we  wrestle  not  against  flesh  and  blood, 
but  against  principalities,  against  powers,  against 
the  rulers  of  the  darkness  of  this  world,  against 
spiritual  wickedness  in  high  places.  Wherefore, 
take  unto  you  the  whole  armor  of  God,  that  ye 
maybe  able  to  withstand  in  the  evil  day,  and  having 
done  all,  to  stand.  Stand  therefore,  having  your 
loins  girt  about  with  truth,  and  having  on  the 
breastplate  of  righteousness,  and  your  feet  shod 
with  the  preparation  of  the  gospel  of  peace  ;  above 
all,  taking  the  shield  of  faith,  wherewith  ye  shall 


310       CHRISTIAN'S  FIGHT  WITH  APOLLYON 

be  able  to  quench  the  fiery  darts  of  the  Wicked 
One  ;  and  take  the  helmet  of  salvation,  and  the 
sword  of  the  Spirit,  which  is  the  word  of  God  ; 
praying  always  and  watching  with  all  prayer  and 
supplication  in  the  Spirit." 

So,  in  accordance  with  these  directions,  they 
harnessed  Christian,  and  sent  him  away  armed. 
But  indeed,  he  needed  all  his  armor,  for  the 
hour  of  danger  was  near.  Great  helps  from  the 
Lord,  great  and  sweet  experiences  of  grace,  are 
ordinarily  granted  when  God  has  some  great  trial 
for  his  people  to  pass  through  ;  so,  when  the 
Christian  has  been  enjoying  much  sacred  com- 
munion with  Christ,  and  had  much  of  the  glory 
of  God  shining  into  his  heart  in  the  face  of  Jesus, 
he  should  say  to  himself,  Now  must  I  be  watch- 
ful ;  this  is  not  merely  for  my  comfort,  but  to 
prepare  me  for  what  is  to  come,  for  labors  and 
for  conflicts,  and  if  I  be  not  wary,  my  very 
spiritual  enjoyments  will  put  me  off  my  guard, 
and  make  me  proud  or  self-indulgent.  Now  must 
I  keep  in  my  hand  the  weapon  of  ALL  PRAYER. 
So  was  Christian  in  need,  for  Apollyon  was  near. 

And  first,  he  had  to  go  down  into  the  Valley  of 
Humiliation,  and  this  itself  was  hard  and  dan- 
gerous work,  for  the  House  Beautiful  stood  on  a 
mount,  as  it  were,  even  above  the  Hill  Difficulty, 
and  the  humbling  of  the  soul  before  God  is  as 
hard  a  work  as  climbing  that  hill.  So  Discretion, 
Piety,  Prudence,  and  Charity,  all  must  needs 
accompany  Christian  down  into  that  Valley  ;  he  had 
need  of  them  all,  and  of  their  sweet  discourses  by 
the  way ;  and  by  their  help,  going  warily,  he  got 


IN    THE    VALLEY    OF    HUMILIATION.  311 

down  to  the  bottom  of  the  hill.  Here,  therefore, 
kindly  giving  him  refreshments  for  the  way,  they 
bade  him  God  speed,  and  he  went  on. 

On  very  many  accounts,  this  going  down  into 
the  Valley  of  Humiliation  is  extremely  difficult ;  and 
few  indeed  there  be,  who  do  not,  like  Christian,  get 
some  slips  by  the  way.  Satan  here  also  hath  an 
advantage  in  representing  that  in  going  down  so 
low,  we  are  going  out  of  the  way  of  influence  and 
usefulness.  He  tells  us  that  great  designs  for 
God  cannot  be  accomplished  in  the  Valley,  and  he 
makes  it  appear  as  if  we  were  going  into  darkness, 
or  out  of  the  world.  He  tells  us  that  such  a  light 
as  ours  ought  to  be  set  on  a  very  tall  candlestick ; 
and  he  sets  that  bold  fellow  Shame  to  work  upon 
us,  as  upon  Faithful,  and  sometimes  to  go  with 
us  quite  through  the  Valley.  And  if  he  succeeds 
in  creating  an  inward  discontent  and  repining  in 
Christian,  then,  a  little  further  on,  he  is  very  likely 
to  bestride  the  path  as  Apollyon,  brandishing  his 
flaming  darts.  So,  in  going  down  into  this  valley, 
a  man  must  say  within  himself,  What  have  I  to 
do  with  dictating  1  It  is  God  who  knows  what 
is  best,  and  not  I.  He  knows  what  is  best  for 
me,  and  what  is  most  for  his  own  glory.  If  1 
be  submissive  to  him,  he  will  make  what  use  of 
me  he  can  ;  and  though  I  may  miss  my  purpose, 
he  will  be  sure  not  to  miss  his  ;  and  what  more 
can  I  ask  or  wish  for  ?  My  business  now  is  SUB- 
MISSION. 

But  that  thou  art  my  wisdom,  Lord, 

And  both  mine  eyes  are  thine, 
My  mind  would  be  extremely  stirred 

For  missing  my  design. 


312      CHRISTIAN'S  FIGHT  WITH  APOLLYON 

VTere  it  not  better  to  bestow 

Some  place  and  power  on  me  ! 
Then  should  thy  praises  with  me  grow, 

And  share  in  my  degree. 

But  when  I  thus  dispute  and  grieve, 

I  do  resume  my  sight ; 
And  pilfering  what  I  once  did  give, 
Disseize  thee  of  thy  right. 

How  know  I,  if  thou  shouldst  me  raise, 

That  I  should  then  raise  thee  ? 
Perhaps  great  places  and  thy  praise 

Do  not  so  well  agree. 

Wherefore  unto  my  gift  I  stand  ; 

I  will  no  more  advise : 
Only  do  thou  lend  me  a  hand, 
•    ,  •  Since  thou  hast  both  mine  eyes. 

GEORGE  HERBERT. 

This  is  all  we  need, — the  Lord's  guidance  ;  then 
like  little  children  to  follow  him,  whether  it  be 
up  the  Hill  Difficulty,  or  through  the  Valley  of 
Humiliation.  If  it  be  he  who  raises  us  high,  he 
also  will  keep  us  from  falling  ;  if  it  be  he  who 
lays  us  low,  then  we  have  no  business  to  murmur, 
but  simply  to  say  to  ourselves, 

How  know  I,  if  thou  shouldst  me  raise, 
That  I  should  then  raise  thee  ? 

Now,  good  Christian,  thou  art  no  longer  on 
the  mount,  and  here,  in  the  depth  of  this  Valley, 
thou  art  to  meet  thine  enemy,  and  try  thine  armor. 
Bunyan  knew  this  from  experience ;  and  here,  for 
the  much  better  understanding  of  this  conflict  of 
Christian  with  Apollyon,  the  reader  of  the  Pil- 
grim's Progress  ought  to  turn  to  the  history  of 
Bunyan's  own  temptations  in  the  Grace  Abounding; 
for  this  passage,  and  that  which  follows  it,  of  the 
Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death,  are  written,  as  it 


IN   THE   VALLEY   OF   HUMILIATION.  313 

were,  out  of  Bunyan's  own  heart,  and  describe 
things  which  some  Christians  know  not  how  to 
understand,  but  by  the  experience  of  others.  You 
will  find,  from  the  perusal  of  Bunyan's  own  spi- 
ritual life,  that  he  has  here  brought  together,  in 
the  assault  of  Apollyon  upon  Christian,  many  of 
the  most  grievous  temptations  with  which  his  own 
soul  was  beset,  as  also  in  Christian's  answers  against 
them,  the  very  method  of  defence  which  he  himself 
was  taught  by  divine  grace  in  the  midst  of  the 
conflict.  It  is  here  condensed  into  a  narrow  and 
vivid  scene,  but  it  extended  over  years  of  Bunyan's 
life ;  and  the  wisdom  that  is  in  it,  and  the  points  of 
experience  illustrated,  were  the  fruit  of  many 
months  of  painfulness,  danger,  and  desperate 
struggle  with  the  adversary,  which  he  had  to  go 
through. 

This  foul  fiend,  Apollyon,  came  across  the  field 
to  meet  Christian,  just  after  he  had  had  sweet  evi- 
dence of  his  salvation  from  heaven,  with  many 
golden  seals  thereon,  all  hanging  in  his  sight. 
"  God,  says  Bunyan,  can  tell  how  to  abase  us,  and 
to  hide  pride  from  man.  For  after  the  Lord  had 
in  this  manner  thus  graciously  delivered  me,  and 
had  set  me  down  so  sweetly  in  the  faith  of  his 
holy  gospel,  and  had  given  me  such  strong  con- 
solation and  blessed  evidence  from  heaven,  touch- 
ing my  interest  in  his  love  through  Christ,  the 
Tempter  came  upon  me  again,  and  that  with  a 
more  grievous  and  dreadful  temptation  than  be- 
fore." Now  then,  the  question  with  Christian 
was,  whether  to  go  back  or  to  stand  his  ground  ; 
but  he  considered,  what  it  were  well  every  Chris- 


o!4       CHRISTIAN'S  FIGHT  WITH  APOLLYON 

tian  should  remember,  especially  in  times  of  dan- 
ger, that  though  he  was  well  armed  in  front,  he 
had  no  armor  for  his  back.  God  has  given  us  a 
shield  and  a  breast-plate,  and  the  command  to 
stand ;  but  no  provision  for  flight,  no  defence  in 
running,  nor  any  safety  even  in  looking  back.  So 
thought  Christian,  if  it  were  only  to  save  my  life,  I 
had  better  face  my  enemy  ;  for  if  I  run  he  is  sure 
to  follow,  and  so  to  pierce  me.  So  forward  he 
went,  and  Apollyon  met  him  with  his  dragon 
wings  and  a  disdainful  smile,  and  a  rough  question 
where  he  came  from,  and  whither  he  was  going. 
Christian  told  him  plainly  that  he  came  from  the 
City  of  Destruction,  which  was  the  place  of  all 
evil,  and  that  he  was  going  to  Mount  Zion  above. 
Apollyon  told  him  he  was  a  reprobate,  and  one  of 
his  subjects,  and  that  he  would  certainly  have  him 
in  his  service. 

Christian  told  him  that  his  wages  were  such  as 
a  man  could  not  live  on,  for  that  the  wages  of  sin 
is  death,  and  therefore  he  would  not  serve  him. 
Apollyon  told  him  that  he  would  give  him  better 
wages,  if  he  would  go  back  and  serve  him. 
"  Sometimes,"  says  Bunyan  of  his  own  meeting 
with  the  Adversary,  "  he  would  cast  in  such  wicked 
thoughts  as  these,  that  I  must  pray  to  him,  or  for 
him ;  I  have  thought  sometimes  of  that,  Fall  down, 
or  if  thou  wilt  fall  down  and  worship  me." 
Christian  told  him  that  whereas  he  once  walked 
according  to  the  God  of  this  world,  he  now,  by 
divine  grace,  had  become  the  servant  of  Christ, 
the  Lord's  freeman.  Apollyon  told  him  a  great 
many  had  professed  to  do  so,  but  had  turned  back, 


IN   THE   VALLEY   OF    HUMILIATION.  315 

and  if  he  would,  then  it  should  go  well  with  him. 
Bunyan  was,  at  one  time,  tempted  to  content  him- 
self with  false  opinions,  as  that  there  should  be  no 
day  of  judgment,  that  sin  was  no  such  grievous 
thing,  and  that  present  ease  was  all  he  need  seek 
after.  But  then  the  thoughts  of  death  and  the 
judgment  would  come  upon  him.  Christian  told 
Apollyon  that  he  could  not  go  back  from  Christ's 
service  and  be  forgiven ;  but  that  Christ  would 
forgive  all  his  sins  in  Satan's  service  ;  and  in  fine, 
said  Christian,  I  am  his  servant,  and  I  love  him,  and 
will  follow  him.  Then  did  Apollyon  plead  the 
hard  lot  and  grievous  ends  of  Christians  in  this 
life;  but  Christian  told  him  they  had  their  glory 
in  the  life  to  come.  Then  did  Apollyon  accuse 
Christian  of  all  the  sins  he  had  committed  since 
setting  out  to  be  a  Pilgrim ;  and  this  distressed 
Christian  greatly,  but  still  he  had  faith  to  say  that 
he  had  heartily  repented  of  those  sins,  and  that 
they  would  certainly  be  forgiven  by  the  Prince  of 
glory. 

Then  did  Apollyon,  with  dreadful  rage  and 
blasphemies,  set  upon  Christian,  and  launched  a 
flaming  dart  at  his  breast ;  but  Christian  caught  it 
on  his  shield.  And  now  the  fiery  darts  of  the 
Wicked  One  fell  as  thick  as  hail,  and  poor 
Christian,  wounded  in  many  places,  grew  weaker 
and  weaker,  and  was  almost  spent,  his  Enemy  still 
pressing  upon  him,  but  still  kept  at  bay  by  the 
Sword  of  the  Spirit  in  Christian's  hand.  Among 
the  flaming  darts  which  Apollyon  cast  in,  were 
whole  floods  of  blasphemies  against  God,  Christ, 
and  the  Holy  Scriptures ;  and  many  accursed 

41 


816       CHRISTIAN'S  FIGHT  WITH  APOLLYON 

suggestions,  with  such  a  fast  seisure  upon  Chris- 
tian's spirit,  and  so  overweighing  his  heart,  with 
their  number,  continuance  and  fiery  force,  that  he 
felt  as  if  there  were  nothing  else  but  these  from 
hour  to  hour  within  him,  and  as  though  there 
could  be  no  room  for  any  thing  else  ;  and  they 
made  him  conclude  that  God  had,  in  very  wrath  to 
his  soul,  given  him  up  to  them,  to  be  carried  away 
with  them,  as  with  a  mighty  whirlwind.  The 
only  thing  that  prevented  utter  desperation  was, 
that  Christian  could  still  perceive,  by  the  hateful- 
ness  of  these  suggestions  to  his  soul,  that  there 
was  something  in  him  that  refused  to  embrace 
them.  But  this  consideration  he  then  only  had, 
when  Apollyon  relaxed  a  little,  for  otherwise  the 
noise,  strength  and  force  of  these  temptations  did 
drown,  overflow,  and  as  it  were,  bury  all  such 
thoughts,  or  the  remembrance  of  any  such  thing. 

What  made  the  fight  a  thousand  times  worse 
for  poor  Christian,  was  that  many  of  these  hellish 
darts  were  tipped  by  Apollyon's  malignant  inge- 
nuity with  sentences  from  Scripture,  made  to  flame 
just  like  the  fiery  darts  of  the  Wicked  One,  so  that 
Christian  could  see  no  difference,  and  thought  that 
all  the  sentences  of  scripture  stood  against  him. 
Yea,  it  seemed  as  if  the  air  was  full  of  wrathful 
passages  of  God's  word,  showering  down  as  a  fiery 
storm  into  Christian's  soul.  And  now  Apollyon, 
following  up  his  advantage,  threw  a  fiery  dart, 
which  made  Christian  think  that  he  had  commit- 
ted the  unpardonable  sin  ;  and  the  dart  was  tipped 
with  this  passage,  For  you  know  how  that  after- 
wards he  found  no  place  of  repentance,  though  he 


IN   THE    VALLEY   OF    HUMILIATION.  317 

sought  it  carefully  with  tears.  Also  another  great 
and  dreadful  dart  with  this,  It  is  impossible  for 
those  once  enlightened,  if  they  shall  fall  away,  to 
renew  them  again  unto  repentance.  Also  another 
flaming  dart  with  this,  He  that  shall  blaspheme 
against  the  Holy  Ghost  hath  never  forgiveness,  no, 
never. 

Moreover,  what  weakened  Christian  more  than 
any  thing  else,  was  the  entrance  into  his  soul  of 
those  dreadful  suggestions  against  the  Scriptures, 
so  that  by  reason  of  unbelief  he  could  not  use  with 
much  power  the  Sword  of  the  Spirit  which  was  in 
his  hand,  notwithstanding  that  all  this  while  these 
fearful  sentences  which  Apollyon  did  cast  at  him 
burned  in  his  soul  like  fire,  so  that  Christian 
thought  he  should  be  bereft  of  his  wits. 

And  now  Apollyon,  seeing  his  chance,  gathered 
close  to  him,  and  wrestling  with  him,  gave  him  a 
dreadful  fall,  so  that  his  sword  flew  out  of  his 
hand.  And  now  he  was  indeed  gone  ;  and  now, 
said  Apollyon,  I  am  sure  of  thee ;  and  he  so 
pressed  upon  him  that  Christian  was  in  despair. 
Darkness  came  over  him,  and  he  could  see  nothing 
but  the  dreadful  face  of  the  Fiend.  But,  as  God 
would  have  it ;  (mind  this,  as  God  would  have  it, 
for  it  was  only  God's  sovereign  interposing  mercy 
that  could  help  Christian  now ;)  as  God  would 
have  it,  just  es  Apollyon,  with  his  knee  on 
Christian's  breast,  was  raising  his  arm  to  strike 
a  dart  quite  through  him,  and  make  an  end 
of  him,  Christian  nimbly  reached  out  his  hand  for 
his  Sword,  and  caught  it,  saying,  Rejoice  not 
against  me,  O  mine  Enemy!  When  I  fall,  I  shall 


318       CHRISTIAN'S  FIGHT  WITH  APOLLYON 

arise  !  And  with  that  he  gave  him  so  deadly  and 
powerful  a  thrust,  even  while  he  was  bending  over 
him  for  his  destruction,  that  Apollyon  fell  back, 
as  one  that  had  received  his  mortal  wound.  And 
then  Christian  sprang  up,  as  a  new  man,  and  made 
at  him  again  with  this  flaming  promise,  Nay,  in  all 
these  things  we  are  more  than  conquerors,  through 
him  that  hath  loved  us  !  Then  Apollyon,  with 
hideous  yelling  and  roaring,  spread  his  dragon 
wings,  and  Christian  saw  him  no  more. 

This  was  indeed  a  most  terrific  conflict.  May 
God  shield  us  all  from  such  encounters  with  the 
great  Adversary  !  With  the  delineation  of  Chris- 
tian's own  fight,  I  have  mingled  the  descriptions 
of  Bunyan's  conflicts  with  the  same  Adversary,  as 
recorded  in  the  Grace  Abounding.  Christian,  as 
well  as  Banyan,  was  certainly  brought  to  the  very 
verge  of  perdition,  but  it  was  for  the  sake  of 
after  glory,  and  One  there  was  who  would  nqt 
suffer  him  to  be  tempted  beyond  what  he  was  able 
to  bear,  but  stood  by  him,  though  invisible,  and 
delivered  him  out  of  the  mouth  of  the  lion.  But 
oh  the  sighs  and  groans  that  burst  from  Christian's 
heart  in  the  fierceness  of  this  conflict !  "  I  never," 
says  the  Dreamer,  "  saw  him  all  the  while  give  so 
much  as  one  pleasant  look,  till  he  perceived  he  had 
wounded  Apollyon  with  his  two-edged  sword  ;  then 
indeed  he  did  smile  and  look  upward  ;  but  'twas 
the  dreadfulest  sight  that  ever  I  saw."  Oh,  with 
what  tears  of  gratitude  did  Christian  thank  God 
for  his  deliverance  ;  and  then  there  came  to  him  a 
divine  hand,  with  leaves  from  the  Tree  of  Life  for 
his  healing ;  and  then  having  partaken  of  the 


IN   THE   VALLEY   OF   HUMILIATION.  319 

refreshments  given  him  in  the  House  Beautiful,  he 
addressed  himself  to  his  journey,  for  this  was  no 
place  for  delay,  where  such  enemies  were  to  be 
met  with.  So  on  through  the  Valley  he  went,  with 
his  drawn  sword  in  his  hand,  the  which,  though  he 
lost  it  once,  had  done  him  such  mighty  and  pre- 
cious service  in  the  battle  with  Apollyon.  It  was 
best  to  be  prepared,  for  who  knows,  thought  he, 
what  other  enemy  may  be  at  hand.  And  indeed 
the  place  whence  Apollyon  came  was  very  near, 
but  Christian  met  with  no  other  fiend  or  dragon 
quite  through  the  Valley  of  Humiliation. 

Now,  terrible  as  this  conflict  is,  it  will  never  do 
to  regard  it  in  any  other  light  than  as  an  example 
of  what  every  immortal  soul  has  to  encounter,  that 
resolutely  sets  out  for  heaven.  There  is  a  conflict 
in  this  world  between  heaven  and  hell,  sin  and 
holiness,  life  and  death,  Christ  and  Satan,  good 
angels  and  bad,  good  men,  reprobates,  and  demons. 
There  is  a  conflict  between  the  hosts  of  heaven 
and  the  hosts  of  hell  for  the  soul,  and  a  conflict 
between  grace  and  nature,  good  and  evil,  the 
Spirit  of  God  and  the  spirit  of  worldliness  in  the 
soul.  Eternal  life  or  eternal  death  depends  upon 
the  issue.  The  soul's  great  Adversary  is  one  of 
inconceivable  power,  skill  and  malignity.  There 
is  but  one  other  being  who  is  able  cope  with  him, 
and  even  that  Almighty  and  glorious  Being,  to 
accomplish  his  wondrous  plan  and  purpose,  became 
like  one  of  us,  yet  without  sin,  and  in  our  nature 
became  obedient  unto  death,  that  he  might  destroy 
him  that  had  the  power  of  death,  even  the  devil. 
There  is  therefore  no  way  for  Christ's  disciples  to 


320       CHRISTIAN'S  FIGHT  WITH  APOLLYON 

overcome  this  Adversary  but  by  the  blood  of  the 
Lamb,  and  the  word  of  their  testimony  in  regard 
to  redemption. 

To  some  men  Satan  reveals  himself  more 
clearly  than  to  others,  assaults  them  more  vio- 
lently, and  makes  them  feel  more  of  his  power 
and  malignity.  But  all  men  know  what  it  is  to 
enter  into  temptation,  and  when  that  is  done,  Satan 
is  not  afar  off.  Apollyon  is  near.  Therefore  our 
blessed  Lord,  in  the  prayer  he  has  taught  us, 
puts  the  two  petitions  in  company,  Lead  us  not 
into  temptation,  but  deliver  us  from  the  Evil 
One.  And  Satan  is  called  the  Tempter,  and  the 
shield  of  faith  is  given  to  the  Pilgrim  for  this  very 
purpose,  that  he  may  be  able  to  quench  all  the 
fiery  darts  of  the  Wicked  One.  Now  there  is 
enough  of  sin  in  every  man's  own  heart  to  tempt 
him,  and  every  man  is  tempted  when  he  is  led 
away  of  his  own  lust  and  enticed.  And  when  a 
man  thus  goes  after  his  sins,  he  rather  tempts 
Satan  than  Satan  tempts  him.  There  is  no  need 
for  Apollyon  to  advance  towards  such  a  man,  for 
such  an  one  is  coming  over  to  Apollyon  ;  he  rather 
enters  into  the  devil,  than  the  devil  into  him.  A 
man  is  waited  for  of  Satan,  when  he  enters  into 
temptation,  and  there  is  much  in  that  expression, 
enter  into.  Our  blessed  Lord  never  said,  Pray 
that  ye  be  not  tempted,  but  Watch  and  pray  that 
ye  enter  not  into  temptation,  that  ye  enter  not 
within  it,  as  a  cloud  surrounding  you  and  taking 
away  your  light,  and  leading  you  to  deceive  you, 
that  ye  enter  not  into  temptation,  into  its  power, 
into  its  atmosphere,  into  its  spirit,  for  when  that 


IN    THE    VALLEY    OF    HUMILIATION.  321 

is  done,  the    soul  is   weakened   and    easily  con- 
quered. 

Men  that  are  led  away  of  their  own  lusts,  that 
are  under  the  power  of  a  besetting  sin,  or  that 
are  utterly  careless  and  insensible,  do  not  need 
to  be  tempted  of  the  devil ;  he  can  safely  leave 
them  to  themselves,  for  he  has  a  friend  within 
the  citadel.  He  need  look  after  such  men  only 
once  in  a  while,  for,  going  on  as  they  do,  they 
are  sure  of  ruin.  But  good  men,  and  especially 
eminently  good  men,  such  as  Bunyan  and  Luther, 
he  well  knows  cannot  be  safely  left,  inasmuch  as 
the  grace  of  God  in  them  overcomes  ordinary 
temptation,  and  therefore  such  ones  are  made  to 
feel  the  power  of  his  fiery  darts.  Apollyon  at- 
tacked Christian,  when  Formalist  and  Hypocrisy, 
had  they  passed  through  that  Valley,  would  have 
passed  without  any  molestation  at  all.  Moreover, 
Faithful  passed  through  it  without  seeing  or  hearing 
any  thing  of  Apollyon ;  and  also  all  the  Valley 
of  the  Shadow  of  Death  beyond,  Faithful  passed 
in  clear  sunshine,  so  that  Bunyan  does  not  mean 
to  represent  every  Christian  as  subject  to  such 
fierce  temptations  of  the  devil  as  he  himself  was 
called  to  endure. 

Besides,  it  is  proper  to  compare  this  passage 
of  Christian  through  the  Valley  of  Humiliation, 
and  the  dread  conflict  with  Apollyon  in  it,  with 
the  sweet  and  pleasant  passage  of  Mercy,  Chris- 
tiana, and  her  children,  under  the  care  of  Mr. 
Greatheart,  through  the  same  place.  Bunyan 
evidently  intends  to  represent  that  according  to 
the  degree  of  humility  and  contentedness  with 


322       CHRISTIAN'S  FIGHT  WITH  APOLLYON 

God's  allotments  in  the  heart  of  the  Christian, 
will  be  the  degree  of  ease,  security,  or  delightful- 
ness  with  which  this  Valley  of  Humiliation  will  be 
passed  through.  In  going  down  into  this  Valley, 
Christian  is  represented  as  having  had  some  slips, 
'though  accompanied  by  Discretion,  Piety,  Cha- 
rity and  Prudence  ;  and  these  slips  are  stated 
in  the  second  part  to  have  been  the  cause  of  his 
meeting  with  Apollyon  ;  "  for  they  that  get  slips 
there,  must  look  for  combats  here  ;  and  the  Scrip- 
ture saith,  He  that  exalteth  himself  shall  be 
abased,  but  he  that  humbleth  himself  shall  be 
exalted."  If  those  slips  were  the  fruit  of  discon- 
tent and  self-exaltation,  then  it  is  evident  that 
Christian  needed  the  sore  buffets  of  the  Adver- 
sary, or  something  equivalent,  to  humble  him  ; 
just  as  unto  Paul  was  given  a  thorn  in  the  flesh, 
the  messenger  of  Satan,  to  preserve  him  from 
being  exalted  by  the  abundance  of  the  revelations 
made  unto  him.  But  for  whatever  reason,  the 
Pilgrims  under  Mr.  Greatheart  found  this  Valley 
of  Humiliation  to  be  one  of  the  most  delightful 
places  in  all  their  pilgrimage. 

There  is  also  another  character,  exquisitely 
drawn  by  Bnnyan  in  his  Second  Part,  that  of  good 
Mr.  Fearing,  who  was  so  taken  with  the  beauty, 
peacefulness,  and  security  of  this  pleasant  Valley, 
that  he  would  fain  have  spent  his  whole  life  there  ; 
it  suited  his  deadness  to  the  world,  and  his  timid, 
retiring  spirit,  so  aloof  it  was  from  all  the  cares 
and  vanities  of  life,  and  all  the  temptations  of  the 
devil.  "  Yea,  I  think  there  was  a  kind  of  sympa- 
thy betwixt  that  valley  and  him  ;  for  I  never  saw 


IN    THE    VALLEY   OF    HUMILIATION.  323 

him  better  in  all  his  pilgrimage  than  he  was  in  that 
valley.  Here  he  would  lie  down,  embrace  the 
ground,  and  kiss  the  very  flowers  that  grew  in  this 
valley.  He  would  now  be  up  every  morning  by 
break  of  day,  tracing  and  walking  to  and  fro  in  the 
Valley.  But  when  he  was  come  to  the  entrance 
of  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death,  I  thought  I 
should  have  lost  my  man  :  not  for  that  he  had 
any  inclination  to  go  back  ;  that  he  always  ab- 
horred ;  but  he  was  ready  to  die  for  fear.  Oh 
the  hobgoblins  will  have  me  !  the  hobgoblins  will 
have  me  !  cried  he  ;  and  I  could  not  beat  him  out 
on't.  He  made  such  a  noise  and  such  an  outcry 
here,  that  had  they  but  heard  him,  it  was  enough 
to  encourage  them  to  come  and  fall  upon  us.  But 
this  I  took  very  great  notice  of,  that  this  valley  was 
as  quiet  when  we  went  through  it  as  ever  I  knew 
it  before  or  since.  I  suppose  those  enemies  here 
had  now  a  special  check  from  our  Lord,  and  a 
command  not  to  meddle  till  Mr.  Fearing  had  passed 


over  it." 


Now  it  is  manifest  that  however  pleasant  the 
Valley  of  Humiliation  may  be  in  itself,  yet  if  a 
man  may  bring  discontent  in  his  own  heart,  and 
a  proud  mind  into  it,  it  will  be  filled,  to  him, 
with  enemies,  and  Apollyon  will  be  very  sure  to 
assault  him  there.  But  the  passage  of  Christiana, 
Mercy  and  the  children,  through  this  valley  was,  as 
I  have  said,  most  delightful.  And  in  the  descrip- 
tion of  it,  as  they  found  it,  Bunyan  has,  if  possi- 
ble, exceeded  himself  in  beauty,  that  description 
being  one  of  the  finest  chapters  in  either  part  of  the 
pilgrimage,  and  sprinkled  with  snatches  of  true 
42 


324       CHRISTIAN'S  FIGHT  WITH  APOLLYON 

poetry.  "  Christiana  thought  she  heard  in  a  grove, 
a  little  way  off  on  the  right  hand,  a  most  curious 
melodious  note,  with  words  much  like  these  : 


Through  all  my  life  thy  favor  is 

So  frankly  shown  to  me, 
That  in  thy  house  forevermore 

My  dwelling-place  shall  be. 

And  listening  still,  she  thought  she  heard  another 
answer  it,  saying, 

For  why  ?  the  Lord  our  God  is  good ; 

His  mercy  is  forever  sure  : 
His  truth  at  all  times  firmly  stood, 

And  shall  fron  age  to  age  endure. 

So  Christiana  asked  Prudence  who  it  was  that 
made  those  curious  notes.  They  are,  said  she, 
our  country  birds  ;  they  sing  these  notes  but  sel- 
dom, except  it  be  in  the  spring,  when  the  flowers 
appear,  and  the  sun  shines  warm,  and  then  you 
may  hear  them  all  day  long.  I  often,  said  she,  go 
out  to  hear  them ;  we  also  ofttimes  keep  them 
tame  in  our  house.  They  are  very  fine  company 
for  us  when  we  are  melancholy  ;  also,  they  make 
the  woods  and  groves  and  solitary  places  desirous 
to  be  in." 

"  We  need  not  be  so  afraid  of  this  Valley,  said 
Mr.  Greatheart,  for  here  is  nothing  to  hurt  us, 
unless  we  procure  it  for  ourselves.  The  common 
people,  when  they  hear  that  some  frightful  thing 
has  befallen  such  a  one  in  such  a  place,  are  of 
opinion  that  that  place  is  haunted  by  some  foul 
fiend  or  evil  spirit ;  when,  alas,  it  is  for  the  fruit  of 
their  own  doing  that  such  things  do  befall  them 
there.  But  this  Valley  of  Humiliation  is  the  best 


IN    THE    VALLEY    OF    HUMILIATION.  325 

and  most  fruitful  piece  of  ground  in  all  these 
parts.  It  is  meadow  ground,  and  in  the  summer 
time  a  man  may  feast  his  eyes  with  that  which  will 
be  delightful  to  him.  Behold  how  green  this 
valley  is,  also,  how  beautiful  with  lilies!  I  have 
known  many  laboring  men,  that  have  got  good 
estates  in  the  Valley  of  Humiliation ;  for  God 
resisteth  the  proud,  but  giveth  grace  to  the  hum- 
ble ;  for  indeed  it  is  a  very  faithful  soil,  and  doth 
bring  forth  by  handfuls.  Some  also  have  wished 
that  the  next  way  to  their  Father's  house  were 
here,  that  they  might  be  troubled  no  more  with 
hills  or  mountains  to  go  over  ;  but  the  way  is  the 
way,  and  there  is  an  end. 

Now,  as  they  were  going  along  and  talking,  they 
spied  a  boy  feeding  his  father's  sheep.  The  boy 
was  in  very  mean  clothes,  but  of  a  fresh  and  well- 
favored  countenance  ;  and  as  he  sat  by  himself,  he 
sang.  Hark,  said  Mr.  Greatheart,  to  what  the 
Shepherd's  boy  saith  :  so  they  hearkened,  and  he 
said, 

He  that  is  down  needs  fear  no  fall, 

He  that  is  low  no  pride : 
He  that  is  humble  ever  shall 

Have  God  to  be  his  guide. 

I  am  content  with  what  I  have, 

Little  be  it  or  much ; 
And,  Lord,  contentment  still  I  crave, 

Because  thou  savest  such. 

Fulness  to  such  a  burden  is 

Who  go  on  pilgrimage. 
Here  little  and  hereafter  bliss, 

Is  best,  from  age  to  age. 

Then  said  their  guide,  Do  you  hear  him  T     I  will 
dare  to  say  this  boy  lives  a  merrier  life,  and  wears 


326       CHRISTIAN'S  FIGHT  WITH  APOLLYON 

more  of  that  herb  called  hearts-ease  in  his  bosom, 
than  he  that  is  clad  in  silk  and  velvet." 

In  this  Valley,  says  Bunyan,  our  Lord  formerly 
had  his  country-house ;  he  loved  much  to  be 
here  ;  he  loved  also  to  walk  these  meadows,  for  he 
found  the  air  was  pleasant.  Besides,  here  a  man 
shall  be  free  from  the  noise  and  from  the  hurry- 
ings  of  this  life ;  all  states  are  full  of  noise  and 
confusion  ;  only  the  Valley  of  Humiliation  is  that 
empty  and  solitary  place.  Here  a  man  shall  not 
be  so  let  and  hindered  in  his  contemplation,  as  in 
other  places  he  is  apt  to  be.  This  is  a  valley  that 
nobody  loves  to  walk  in  but  those  that  love  a  pil- 
grim's life.  And  though  Christian  had  the  hard 
hap  to  meet  here  with  Apollyon,  and  to  enter  with 
him  in  a  brisk  encounter  ;  yet,  I  must  tell  you  that 
in  former  times  men  have  met  with  angels  here, 
have  found  pearls  here,  and  have  in  this  place  found 
the  words  of  life. 

Mercy  thought  herself  as  well  in  this  Valley  as 
ever  she  had  been  in  all  their  journey.  "The  place 
methinks,  suits  with  my  spirit.  I  love  to  be  in 
such  places,  where  there  is  no  rattling  with 
coaches,  no  rumbling  with  wheels  ;  methinks  here 
one  may,  without  much  molestation,  be  thinking 
what  he  is,  whence  he  came,  what  he  has  done, 
and  to  what  the  King  has  called  him.  Here  one 
may  think  and  break  the  heart,  and  melt  in  one's 
spirit.  They  that  go  rightly  through  this  valley  of 
Baca,  make  it  a  well ;  the  rain,  that  God  sends 
down  from  heaven  upon  them  that  are  there, 
also  filleth  the  pools.  To  this  man  will  I  look,, 
sarth  the  King,  even  to  him  that  is  humble,  and 


IN    THE    VALLEY    OF    HUMILIATION.  327 

of  a  contrite   spirit,    and    who   trembleth   at  my 
word. 

Mercy  was  right  in  her  preference  of  this  sweet 
valley.  The  few  noises  here  heard  were  as  the 
voices  of  heaven  to  shepherds  watching  their  flocks 
by  moonlight. 

Stillness,  accompanied  by  sounds  so  soft, 

Charms  more  than  silence.    Meditation  here 

May  think  down  hours  to  moments.    Here  the  heart 

May  give  a  useful  lesson  to  the  head, 

And  Learning  wiser  grow  without  his  books. 

This  retired  and  lowly  Vale  was  a  scene  for  a 
spirit  like  Cowper's  to  linger  in ;  though  his  soul 
was  long  in  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death. 
Strange,  that  such  a  discipline  should  have  been 
necessary  for  such  a  mind !  This  Valley  of 
Humiliation,  as  Christiana  and  Mercy  found  it, 
Cowper  has  described  more  beautifully  than  any 
other  writer  that  ever  lived. 


Far  from  the  world,  O  Lord  I  flee, 
From  strife  and  tumult  far ; 

From  scenes  where  Satan  wages  still 
His  most  successful  war. 

The  calm  retreat,  the  silent  shade, 
With  prayer  and  praise  agree  ; 

And  seem  by  thy  sweet  bounty  made 
For  those  who  follow  thee. 

There,  if  thy  Spirit  touch  the  soul, 
And  grace  her  mean  abode, 

Oh  with  what  peace  and  joy  and  love, 
She  communes  with  her  God. 

Then,  like  the  nightingale  she  poun 

Her  solitary  lays : 
Nor  asks  a  witness  of  her  song, 

Nor  thirsts  for  human  praise. 


328       CHRISTIAN'S  FIGHT  WITH  APOLLYON 

Now  if  you  wish  for  a  commentary  in  plain 
prose  on  the  sweetness  of  Bunyan's  delineation  of 
this  Valley,  you  may  find  it  in  the  Dairyman's 
Daughter,  or  in  the  Shepherd  of  Salisbury  Plain. 
But  it  is  very  important  to  remember  that  those 
who  would  find  a  foretaste  of  heavenly  rest  in  this 
Valley,  must  bring  into  it,  in  their  own  hearts,  the 
spirit  of  Heaven  ;  then,  and  not  otherwise,  is  it  a 
Valley  of  Peace.  When  God's  discipline  disclo- 
ses to  a  man  "  the  plague  of  his  own  heart,"  then 
he  is  very  apt  to  lay  the  evil  to  the  score  of 
circumstances,  instead  of  the  inveterate  diseased 
heart,  which  needed  so  much,  and  perhaps  such 
violent  medicine  for  its  healing.  Oh,  cries  one, 
if  I  were  only  in  a  different  situation,  how  easy  it 
would  be  to  live  near  to  God !  Ah,  cries  another,  if 
I  were  in  the  place  of  this  or  that  happy  individual, 
how  easy  it  would  be  to  adorn  my  profession  ! 
Every  thing  in  my  very  circumstances  would  lead 
me  to  it !  Oh,  exclaims  another,  if  I  had  the  health 
of  such  an  one,  how  easy  it  would  be  to  rise  above 
my  difficulties  and  walk  with  God !  And  I,  complains 
another,  if  my  occupation  did  not  so  absorb  me, 
could  be  as  godly  as  I  ought  to  be  !  Oh,  if  I  were 
in  the  place  of  my  minister,  how  holy  I  would 
become ! 

Ah  !  I  would,  and  I  would,  and  I  would,  if  it 
were  so,  and  if  it  were  so,  and  if  it  were  only  so ! 
Here,  dear  friend,  is  the  very  plague  of  your  own 
heart  revealing  itself.  Yon  are  discontented  with 
your  situation.  You  are  not  submissive  to  the 
trials  God  has  laid  upon  you.  And,  instead  of 
seeking  to  be  delivered  from  your  heart-plague, 


IN   THE    VALLEY    OF    HUMILIATION.  329 

you  are  only  casting  about  to  find  some  position 
if  possible,  where  it  will  not  have  occasion  to 
vex  you ;  where  you  suppose,  in  fact,  that  it  will 
be  easier,  that  it  will  cost  less  self-denial  to  serve 
Christ  than  it  does  now.  But  remember  that  you 
are  not  called  to  be  holy  in  another's  situation,  but 
your  own ;  and  if  you  are  not  now  faithful  to  God 
in  the  sphere  in  which  he  has  placed  you,  you 
would  not,  probably,  be  any  more  faithful,  let  him 
place  you  where  he  might.  For  he  that  is  faithful 
in  that  which  is  least,  is  faithful  also  in  much  ;  and 
he  that  is  neglectful  in  that  which  is  least,  is 
neglectful  also  in  much.  And  as  to  circumstances 
repressing  the  plague  of  your  own  heart,  they  would 
only  change  its  exhibition  a  little.  Tho  plague  is 
in  your  heart,  and  not  in  your  circumstances. 
Prosperous  circumstances  might,  it  is  true,  hide 
that  plague  ;  in  a  different  situation  it  might  have 
been  concealed  from  yourself,  but  would  that  be 
any  gain  1  Would  you  really  be  any  the  better  for 
that?  The  revelation  of  the  evil  might  only  be 
deferred  till  it  should  work  your  ruin.  How  much 
better  it  is  to  know  it  in  season,  and  be  humbled 
before  God,  though  it  be  at  the  cost  of  ever  so 
much  offering. 

And  remember  that  those  whose  happy  lot  you, 
under  the  influence  of  this  envious  plague  in  your 
own  heart,  deem  so  desirable,  if  they  are  really 
living  near  to  God  where  they  are,  would  also  have 
been  very  holy  in  your  situation.  Take  Mr.  Wil- 
berforce,  for  example,  a  Christian  in  a  sphere  of 
life  in  society  in  all  respects  desirable  and  de- 
lightful in  regard  to  this  world,  and  living  in  that 


330       CHRISTIAN'S  FIGHT  WITH  APOLLYON. 

sphere  to  the  glory  of  his  Saviour.  Now  you 
may  perhaps  think  if  you  could  only  change  situ- 
ations with  such  a  man,  O  how  easy  it  would  be  to 
conquer  the  plague  of  your  own  heart ;  how  little 
should  you  feel  it,  how  easy  it  would  be,  in  such 
a  conspicuous  situation,  with  all  your  wishes  grati- 
fied, to  shine  to  the  glory  of  your  Redeemer.  You 
could  do  it,  you  think,  and  it  would  cost  you  no 
self-denial  at  all.  But  in  your  present  situation  it 
is  a  hard  thing  to  be  a  living  Christian.  Now 
remember  that  if  a  man  like  Mr.  Wilberforce  could 
change  situations  with  you,  he  would  be  a  very 
holy  and  happy  man  where  you  perhaps  are  vexed 
and  discontented,  and  you,  in  his  place,  might 
be  a  very  worldly  and  ambitious  men,  where  he 
was  humble  and  prayerful.  Be  assured,  it  is  not 
not  place,  nor  opportunities,  nor  circumstances, 
that  make  character  or  minister  grace,  but  it  is 
rather  character  that  makes  circumstances,  and 
grace  that  makes  place. 

So  the  next  time  you  detect  your  heart,  under 
the  influence  of  the  plague  that  is  in  it,  saying 
to  you  like  a  concealed  devil,  O  if  I  were  in  such 
or  such  an  one's  place,  how  much  good  I  could 
do,  or  how  holy  a  person  I  could  become,  just 
think  of  some  eminent  saint,  and  say,  If  that 
person  were  in  my  place,  how  much  nearer  he 
would  live  to  God  than  I  do,  how  many  opportuni- 
ties that  I  waste  he  would  use  for  his  Master's 
glory,  how  he  would  fill  my  little  sphere,  that  now 
is  so  dark,  with  brightness  and  happiness !  And 
you,  if  you  will,  may  do  the  same. 


CHRIS  TIAJN 


IN   THE 


VALLEY  OF  THE  SHADOW  OF  DEATH. 


Sympathy  with  spiritual  distresses.— The  power  of  prayer.— Bunyan's  own  tempta- 
tions depicted  in  Christian's  distresses. — The  similar  experience  of  Job,  and  that  of 
David. — The  breaking  of  the  light. — Comparison  of  the  experience  of  Christian 
with  that  of  Christiana  and  Mercy  in  this  Valley. — The  uses  of  trials. — Effect 
of  the  hiding  of  God's  countenance  from  the  soul.— Christian's  meeting  with 
Faithful. 

WE  are  naturally  less  affected  with  sympathy 
for  men's  spiritual  distresses,  than  we  are  for  their 
temporal  or  bodily  evils.  The  reason  is  to  be 
found  in  our  want  of  spiritual  experience,  and  in 
the  fact  that  we  habitually  look  at,  and  are  moved 
by,  the  things  which  are  seen,  and  not  the  things 
which  are  unseen.  We  are  creatures  of  sense, 
and  therefore  a  great  battle,  when  a  kingdom  is  to 
be  lost  or  won,  affects  us  more  deeply  than  the 
far  more  sublime  and  awful  conflict,  where  the  soul 
and  the  kingdom  of  heaven  are  to  be  lost  or  won 
forever. 

I  have  stood  upon  the  sea  shore,  in  a  dreadful 

storm,  and   have   watched   the  perils  of  a  noble 

frigate,  about  to  be  cast  upon  the  rocks,  holding 

by  only  her  last  anchor,  plunging  and  pitching 

43 


332  CHRISTIAN   IN    THE 

amidst  mountainous  breakers,  as  if  she  would 
shoot  like  a  stone  to  the  earth's  centre.  One  after 
another  I  have  watched  her  masts  cut  away,  to  see 
if  that  would  not  save  her.  The  shore  was  lined 
with  spectators,  trembling,  affrighted,  weeping, 
unable  to  do  any  thing,  yet  full  of  anxiety  and 
sympathy. 

Now  the  sight  of  an  immortal  soul  in  peril  of 
its  eternal  interests,  beset  with  enemies,  engaged 
in  a  desperate  conflict,  with  hell  opening  her 
mouth  before,  and  fiends  and  temptations  pressing 
after,  is  a  much  more  sublime  and  awful  spectacle. 
A  spiritual  bark  in  the  tempest,  on  the  ocean  of 
life,  struggling  at  midnight  through  furious  gales 
and  waves,  that  by  the  lightning  flashes  are  seen 
every  instant,  ready  to  swallow  her  up,  has  nothing 
to  compare  with  it  in  solemn  interest.  But  of 
all  those  multitudes  of  intensely  anxious  specta- 
tors watching  the  frigate,  on  a  rock-bound  shore, 
ready  to  perish,  there  was  scarcely  here  and  there 
one,  who  could  have  been  persuaded  to  look  with 
the  spiritual  vision  at  spiritual  realities,  or  to  listen 
to  the  most  vivid  descriptions  of  the  danger  of  the 
soul,  amidst  its  struggle  with  its  enemies  :  scarce- 
ly one,  who  would  even  understand  the  danger  of 
the  costly  spiritual  vessel  about  to  be  wrecked  for 
eternity,  and  still  less  any  who  would  sympathise 
with  the  distresses  of  such  a  soul. 

And  yet,  for  one  spectator  watching  the  ship  in 
a  storm  on  the  Mediterranean,  there  were  thou- 
sands tracing  the  course  of  such  a  soul  as  Bun- 
yan's,  out  amidst  the  storms  of  sin  and  temptation, 
with  fiends  flying  through  the  gloom,  with  fiery 


VALLEY  OF  THE  SHADOW  OF  DEATH.    333 

darts  hurtling  the  air,  with  sails  rent,  and  the  sea 
making  breach  after  breach  over  the  vessel. 
Angels,  that  see  from  heaven  to  earth,  are  busy, 
though  we  are  blind.  Clouds  of  witnesses  survey 
the  course  of  the  Pilgrim,  and  when  he  passes 
through  a  place  like  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of 
Death,  there  are,  we  have  reason  to  believe,  more 
good  angels  than  bad  ones  attending  him,  though 
he  does  not  see  them,  by  reason  of  the  darkness. 
If  he  has  not  earthly  sympathy,  he  has  heavenly  ; 
and  all  the  earthly  sympathy  he  does  get  is  heaven- 
ly, for  it  comes  from  God's  own  Spirit  in  the  soul. 
They  that  have  been  new-born,  understand  his 
terrors  ;  they  know  that  there  is  nothing  to  be  com- 
pared with  the  peril  of  the  soul  beset  by  its  great 
Adversary  on  the  way  to  Heaven  ;  nor  any  anguish 
to  be  mentioned  along  with  that  which  is  occa- 
sioned in  the  soul  by  the  hiding  of  God's  counte- 
nance. "  When  he  giveth  quietness,  who  then 
can  make  trouble  I  And  when  he  hideth  his  face, 
who  then  can  behold  him  I  Whether  it  be  done 
against  a  nation,  or  against  a  man  only  !" 

"  Herein,"  says  an  excellent  old  writer,  discour- 
sing on  the  case  of  a  child  of  light  walking  in 
darkness,  "  believers  wrestle  not  alone  with  flesh 
and  blood,  and  the  darkness  thereof,  but  do  further 
conflict  also  with  those  spiritual  wickednesses,  the 
Princes  of  Darkness,  about  their  interest  in  hea- 
venly privileges,  even  with  Satan  and  his  angels, 
whom  the  Apostle  compares  to  a  roaring  lion, 
seeking  whom  he  may  devour.  And  like  as  when 
God  makes  the  natural  darkness,  and  it  is  night, 
then  the  young  lions  creep  forth,  and  roar  after 


CHRISTIAN    IN    THE 

their  prey,  as  the  Psalmist  says,  so  do  these  roar- 
ing lions,  now  when  God  hath  withdrawn  the  light 
of  his  countenance,  and  night  comes  on,  and  these 
damps  and  fogs  of  jealousies  and  guilt  begin  to 
arise  out  of  a  man's  own  heart,  then  come  these 
forth  and  say,  as  David's  enemies  said  in  his  dis- 
tress, Come,  let  us  now  take  him,  for  God  hath 
forsaken  him,  let  us  now  devour  him,  and  swallow 
him  up  with  darkness  and  despair.  And  as  God 
says  of  those  enemies  of  his  church,  I  was  but  a 
little  displeased,  and  they  helped  forward  the 
affliction  ;  so,  when  God  is  angry  with  his  child, 
and  but  a  little  doth  hide  his  face  for  a  moment, 
yet  Satan  watcheth  that  hour  of  darkness,  as 
Christ  calls  it,  and  joins  his  power  of  darkness 
to  this  our  natural  darkness,  to  cause,  if  possible, 
blackness  of  darkness,  even  utter  despair,  in  us." 

It  is  much  such  a  picture  as  this,  that  Bunyan, 
our  great  master  of  spiritual  allegory,  hath  set 
forth  in  such  glowing  colors,  in  the  passage  of  his 
Christian  through  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of 
Death.  It  is  night ;  night  in  Christian's  soul,  and 
therefore  night  in  this  Valley.  He  is  walking  in  the 
path  of  duty,  and  no  forebodings  of  evil,  though  he 
had  them  abundantly,  can  turn  him  back  ;  and  yet, 
it  is  night  in  him,  and  night  around  him.  Gloomy 
dark  mountains  shut  in  the  horizon  ;  the  chill  air 
penetrates  his  soul  with  images  of  the  storm  before 
it  breaks  on  him  ;  the  path  is  exceedingly  narrow, 
and  on  either  side  there  are  terrible  pitfalls  and 
quagmires,  which  must  needs  prove  fatal  to  any 
that  fall  therein.  What  can  Christian  do  ?  He  is 
plainly  in  the  case  represented  in  the  prophet 


VALLEY  OF  THE  SHADOW  OF  DEATH.    335 

Isaiah,  being  here,  as  I  said,  in  the  way  of  duty, 
and  in  the  path  direct  to  the  Celestial  City.  "Who 
is  among  you  that  feareth  the  Lord,  that  walketh 
in  darkness  and  hath  no  light  ?  Let  him  trust  in 
the  name  of  the  Lord,  and  stay  upon  his  God." 
There  is  but  one  thing  for  him  to  do,  and  that  is, 
to  grope  his  way  forward  with  fear  and  trembling, 
remembering  that  God  can,  if  he  will,  save  him 
even  here  ;  and  that,  even  if  he  were  in  kings' 
palaces,  and  God  would  not  save  him,  he  would 
be  no  better  off  than  in  the  midst  of  that  Val- 
ley. Besides,  should  a  man  whom  God  had  de- 
livered from  the  hand  of  Apollyon,  be  afraid  of  any 
of  the  fiends  of  darkness,  or  fear  to  trust  God's 
mercy  in  the  midst  of  them  ? 

There  are  Christians,  who,  as  Bunyan  says,  are 
strangers  to  much  combat  with  the  devil ;  and  such 
cannot  minister  help  to  those  who  come,  as  Chris- 
tian did,  under  his  assaults.  No  man  is  introduced 
to  the  aid  of  Christian  in  all  these  severe  conflicts  ; 
all  the  help  he  finds  is  in  God  only  ;  direct  to  Christ 
he  must  go,  for  there  is  no  other  helper.  This  was 
Bunyan's  own  experience.  While  himself  under 
the  assaults  of  Satan,  in  the  midst  of  this  Valley  of 
the  Shadow  of  Death,  he  did  at  one  time  venture  to 
break  his  mind  to  an  ancient  Christian.  This  was 
a  good  man,  but  not  one  of  deep  experience,  and 
evidently  unable  to  enter  into  Bunyan's  difficulties, 
or  to  understand  his  state  of  mind.  Bunyan  told 
this  man  that  one  of  his  dreadful  fears  was  that  he 
had  sinned  the  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost ;  and  the 
man  answered  him  that  he  thought  so  too  !  This 
was  indeed  but  cold  comfort,  and  the  man  that 


336  CHRISTIAN    IN    THE 

could  administer  it  must  have  had  a  most  narrow 
mind,  as  well  as  an  insensible,  unsympathizing 
heart ;  but  you  often  meet  with  this  want  of  ten- 
derness among  certain  spiritual  comforters,  who 
take  severity  and  want  of  feeling  to  be  marks  of 
faithfulness. 

Poor  Bunyan  was  forced  again  from  man  to  God. 
"Wherefore  I  went  to  God  again  as  well  as  I  could, 
for  mercy  still.  Now  also  did  the  Tempter  begin 
to  mock  me  in  my  misery,"  and  under  this  mock- 
ery, even  the  free,  full  and  gracious  promises  of 
the  Gospel  were  as  a  torment  to  Bunyan,  for  the 
Tempter  suggested  that  they  were  not  for  him, 
because  he  had  sinned  against  and  provoked  the 
Mediator  through  whom  they  were  given,  and  also 
that  his  sins  were  not  among  the  number  of  those 
for  which  the  Lord  Jesus  died  upon  the  cross.  He 
was  as  if  racked  upon  the  wheel ;  he  was  tossed  to 
and  fro  like  the  locust,  and  driven  from  trouble  to 
sorrow.  Every  part  of  the  Word  of  God  seemed 
against  him ;  he  was  as  one  shut  up  in  a  house 
in  flames,  and  running  first  to  one  door  then  to 
another  for  egress,  but  they  are  all  fast  barred 
against  him.  Nor  could  he,  by  reason  of  his  own 
unbelieving  fears,  succeed,  by  any  use  he  could 
make  of  the  Scriptures,  in  driving  the  Tempter 
away  from  him.  It  was  even  suggested  that  it 
was  in  vain  for  him  to  pray ;  nevertheless,  he 
kept  crying  out  for  mercy,  and  in  answer  to 
prayer,  notwithstanding  all  that  Satan  could  do, 
deliverance  came.  It  must  be  this  experience 
which  Bunyan  has  in  mind,  when  he  makes 
Christian  to  pass  hard  by  the  mouth  of  hell,  in  the 

A  tl 


VALLEY   OF    THE    SHADOW    OF    DEATH.        337 

midst  of  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death, 
beset  with  fears  and  distresses,  which  he  could 
put  to  flight  by  no  use  he  could  make  of  the 
Word  of  God.  "  Now,  thought  Christian,  what 
shall  I  do  ?  And  ever  and  anon  the  flame  and 
smoke  would  come  out  in  such  abundance,  with 
sparks  and  hideous  noises  (things  that  cared  not 
for  Christian's  sword,  as  did  Apollyon  before,)  that 
he  was  forced  to  put  up  his  sword,  and  betake 
himself  to  another  weapon,  called  All-Prayer :  so 
he  cried  in  my  hearing,  O  Lord,  I  beseech  thee, 
deliver  my  soul." 

So  did  Bunyan  cry  unto  God  in  the  midst  of 
his  distresses.  "  Will  the  Lord  cast  off  forever,  and 
will  he  be  favorable  no  more  1  Is  his  mercy  clean 
gone  forever,  and  doth  his  promise  fail  forever- 
more  1  Hath  God  forgotten  to  be  gracious,  hath 
he  in  anger  shut  up  his  tender  mercies  ?"  And 
that  promise  sustained  Bunyan,  My  grace  is  suf- 
ficient for  thee  ;  though  it  was  long  indeed  before 
he  could  take  fast  hold  upon  it,  or  enjoy  to  the  full 
its  abundance  of  blessing.  Long  was  he  in 
passing  through  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of 
Death  :  much  longer  than  it  seems  to  take  Chris- 
tian to  grope  his  way  out  of  its  darkness.  And, 
as  you  will  observe,  that  Christian's  conflict  with 
Apollyon  in  the  Valley  of  Humiliation  lies  in  the 
stage  immediately  before  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow 
of  Death,  so  that  he  has  to  pass  frome  one  directly 
to  the  other  without  any  interval,  save  in  the 
precious  season  in  which  the  hand  came  to  him 
with  leaves  from  the  tree  of  life  for  his  healing  ;  so 
it  was  with  Bunyan  himself :  so  it  had  been  in  his 


CHRISTIAN    IN    THE 

own  experience.  He  had  two  distinct,  long,  and 
dreadful  seasons  of  temptation  to  pass  through, 
each  of  them  lasting  for  more  than  two  years — the 
first  more  nearly  resembling  this  dreadful  conflict, 
hand  to  hand,  with  Satan,  with  Apollyon,  and  the 
second  more  fully  depicted  in  Christian's  fearful 
journey  through  this  Valley  of  Death,  after  that 
conflict.  There  was  but  a  short  interval  of  ease 
and  peace  between  them.  "  By  the  strange  and 
unusual  assaults  of  the  Tempter,"  says  Bunyan, 
"  my  soul  was  like  a  broken  vessel,  driven  as  with 
the  winds,  and  tossed  sometimes  headlong  into 
despair :  sometimes  upon  the  covenant  of  works, 
and  sometimes  to  wish  that  the  new  covenant  and 
the  conditions  thereof  might,  so  far  as  I  thought 
myself  concerned,  be  turned  another  way  and 
changed.  But  in  all  these  I  was  as  those  that 
jostle  against  the  rocks — more  broken,  scattered, 
and  rent.  Oh  the  unthought  of  imaginations, 
frights,  fears,  and  terrors,  that  are  effected  by  a 
thorough  application  of  guilt  yielding  to  despera- 
tion !  This  is  as  the  man  that  hath  his  dwelling 
among  the  tombs  with  the  dead,  who  is  always 
crying  out  and  cutting  himself  with  stones." 
"  Now  was  the  word  of  the  gospel  forced  from  my 
soul,  so  that  no  promise  or  encouragement  was 
found  in  the  Bible  for  me.  I  had  cut  myself  off 
by  my  transgressions,  and  left  myself  neither  foot- 
hold nor  hand-hold  among  all  the  stays  and  props 
in  the  precious  word  of  life.  And  truly  I  did  now 
feel  myself  to  sink  into  a  gulf,  as  a  house  whose 
foundation  is  destroyed.  I  did  liken  myself  in  this 
condition  unto  the  case  of  a  child  that  was  fallen 


VALLEY  OF  THE  SHADOW  OF  DEATH.    339 

into  a  mill-pit,  who  thought  it  could  make  some 
shift  to  scramble  and  sprawl  in  the  water :  yea, 
because  it  could  find  neither  hand-hold  nor  foot- 
hold, therefore,  at  last,  it  must  die  in  that  condi- 
tion. So  soon  as  this  fresh  assault  had  fastened 
on  my  soul,  that  scripture  came  into  my  heart, 
"  This  for  many  days  ;"  and,  indeed,  I  found  it 
was  so  ;  for  I  could  not  be  delivered,  nor  brought 
to  peace  again,  until  well-nigh  two  years  and  a  half 
were  completely  finished." 

This  was  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death, 
and  so  did  Christian  go  trembling  and  astonished, 
and  sighing  bitterly  by  reason  of  his  distress  of 
spirit.  The  pathway  was  exceedingly  narrow, 
with  ditches  on  one  side  and  quagmires  on  the 
other;  also,  for  a  time  it  was  pitch  dark,  except  the 
lurid  dreadful  light  of  the  flames  that  were  reaching 
into  the  path  towards  him  ;  no  other  light  did  there 
seem  to  be, 

Save  what  the  glimmering  of  those  livid  flames 
Cast  pale  and  dreadful. 

Also,  in  the  midst  of  the  darkness,  there  were 
doleful  voices  and  rushings  to  and  fro,  as  of  mad 
companies,  so  that  he  thought  he  should  be  torn 
in  pieces,  or  trodden  down  like  mire  in  the  streets. 
But  what  distressed  arid  terrified  Christian,  more 
than  all  other  things  that  he  met  with  in  his  pas- 
sage through  this  dreary  valley,  was  the  horrid 
blasphemies  that  were  whispered  into  his  ear  by 
the  fiends  coming  up  behind  him,  in  such  man- 
ner that  he  really  thought  they  proceeded  from  his 
own  mind  ;  but  he  had  not  the  discretion  either  to 
44 


340  CHRISTIAN   IN   THE 

stop  his  ears,  or  to  know  from  whence  these  blas- 
phemies came. 

Here  is  a  marked  feature,  drawn,  as  we  have 
seen,  directly  from  Bunyan's  experience.  This, 
with  many  other  things,  "  did  tear  and  rend"  Bun- 
yan  himself  in  this  Valley,  out  of  which  none  but 
God  could  have  delivered  him.  "  These  things 
would  so  break  and  confound  my  spirit,"  says 
Bunyan,  "  that  I  could  not  tell  what  to  do  ;  I 
thought  at  times  they  would  have  broken  my  wits  ; 
and  still,  to  aggravate  my  misery,  that  would  run  in 
my  mind,  You  know  how  that  afterwards,  when 
he  would  have  inherited  the  blessing,  he  was 
rejected.  Oh,  no  one  knows  the  terrors  of  those 
days,  but  myself."  Yet  others,  doubtless,  unknown 
to  any  but  God  and  the  soul's  great  Adversary, 
have  passed  through  much  the  same  conflicts. 
What  battles  are  fought  with  Apollyon,  and  what 
victories  gained  though  the  blood  of  the  Lamb, 
what  dreary  passages  are  made  in  every  generation 
through  this  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death,  will 
never  be  known  till  amidst  the  disclosures  of  Eter- 
nity, the  saints  saved  shall  reveal  to  each  other,  for 
the  glory  of  the  Redeemer,  the  wonders  of  his 
grace  in  their  individual  experience.  It  is  but  here 
and  there  that  the  trials  and  triumphs  of  faith  come 
to  view  in  this  world  in  such  instances  as  those  of 
Bunyan  and  Luther ;  but  Eternity  will  be  full  of 
such  spiritual  epics.  And  in  every  man's  ex- 
perience, however  humble,  there  will  be  something 
of  peculiar  glory  to  the  Redeemer.  Many  are  the 
pictures,  unseen  here,  that  are  to  be  set  in  array  in 
the  eternal  world,  with  the  light  of  the  Divine  Attri- 


VALLEY  OF  THE  SHADOW  OF  DEATH.    341 

butes  in  Christ  shining  in  and  through  them,  to  be 
studied  and  admired  forever  and  ever. 

One  of  the  earliest  recorded  instances  of  a  pas- 
sage through  this  dark  Valley  is  that  of  Job  ;  and 
one  of  the  sublimest  instances  of  Faith  in  the  midst 
of  it  is  his  ;  for  in  almost  the  same  breath  in 
which  he  spake  of  the  darkness  in  his  paths,  and 
of  his  hope  removed  like  a  tree,  he  exclaimed,  I 
know  that  my  Redeemer  liveth  !  While  you  listen 
to  the  experience  of  Job,  it  seems  as  if  you  heard 
Bunyan  himself  bemoaning  his  spiritual  dis- 
tresses ;  and  indeed  the  book  of  Job  might,  as 
well  as  the  experience  of  Bunyan,  be  entitled 
"  Grace  Abounding  to  the  Chief  of  Sinners." 
Who  is  this  that  is  speaking  ?  Is  it  not  Christian 
in  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death  ?  "  He 
teareth  me  in  his  wrath  who  hateth  me ;  he  gnasheth 
upon  me  with  his  teeth  ;  mine  enemies  sharpen 
their  eyes  upon  me.  They  have  gaped  upon  me 
with  their  mouth ;  they  have  smitten  me  upon  the 
cheek  reproachfully,  they  have  gathered  themselves 
together  against  me.  God  hath  delivered  me  over 
to  the  ungodly,  and  turned  me  over  into  the  hands 
of  the  wicked.  I  was  at  ease,  but  he  hath  broken 
me  asunder ;  he  hath  also  taken  me  by  my  neck, 
and  shaken  me  to  pieces,  and  set  me  up  for  his 
mark.  His  archers  compass  me  round  about ;  he 
cleaveth  my  reins  asunder,  and  doth  not  spare  ;  he 
poureth  out  my  gall  upon  the  ground.  He  breaketh 
me  with  breach  upon  breach  ;  he  runneth  upon  me 
like  a  giant.  My  face  is  foul  with  weeping,  and  on 
mine  eyelids  is  the  shadow  of  death.  My  breath  is 
corrupt,  my  days  are  extinct,  the  graves  are  ready 


342  CHKISTIAN    IN    THE 

for  me  !"  But  what  is  the  end  of  all  this  1  "  I 
know  that  my  Redeemer  liveth  !"  Fearful  was  the 
trial,  glorious  the  triumph  of  this  eminent  servant 
of  God ! 

There  was  another  recorded  instance  of  a 
journey  through  this  Valley,  which  Bunyan  fol- 
lowed, and  that  was  King  David's.  For  the  bars 
of  death  were  round  about  him  also,  laid  in  the 
lowest  pit,  in  darkness,  in  the  deeps.  When 
he  remembered  God,  he  was  troubled.  "  Thy 
wrath  lieth  hard  upon  me,  and  thou  hast  afflicted 
me  with  all  thy  waves.  I  am  shut  up,  I  cannot 
come  forth.  I  am  afflicted  and  ready  to  die.  While 
I  suffer  thy  terrors,  I  am  distracted.  Thy  fierce 
wrath  goeth  over  me  ;  thy  terrors  have  cut  me  off." 
But  what  was  the  end  in  the  case  of  David  ?  De- 
liverance and  light,  so  signal  and  manifest  in 
answer  to  prayer,  that  his  example  should  be  for 
encouragement  to  all  that  ever  after  him  should 
have  to  pass  through  that  Valley.  "  Thou  forgavest 
the  iniquity  of  my  sin.  For  this  shall  every  one 
that  is  godly  pray  unto  thee  in  a  time  when  thou 
mayest  be  found.  I  was  brought  low,  and  the 
Lord  helped  me.  He  restoreth  my  soul.  Yea, 
though  I  walk  through  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow 
of  Death  I  will  fear  no  evil,  for  thou  art  with  me." 
This  was  a  real  Valley,  and  no  imaginary  evil, 
but  there  were  also  real  deliverances.  The  men 
whom  Christian  met  making  haste  to  go  back  did 
not  at  all  exaggerate  in  their  descriptions  of  its 
terrors  ;  but  they  knew  nothing  of  Him  who  would 
walk  with  all  his  true  pilgrims  through  the  midst  of 
those  terrors.  They  could  see  the  fire  of  the  fur- 


VALLEY  OF. THE  SHADOW  OF  DEATH.    343 

nace,  and  dared  not  think  of  entering  into  it ;  but 
they  could  not  see  the  form  like  unto  the  Son  of 
God  walking  with  his  people  in  the  very  flames. 
Why,  what  have  you  seen,  said  Christian  ? 

"  Seen  !  Why,  the  Valley  itself,  which  is  as  dark 
as  pitch  :  we  also  saw  there  the  hobgoblins,  satyrs, 
and  dragons  of  the  pit :  we  heard  also  in  that 
Valley  a  continued  howling  and  yelling,  as  of  a 
people  under  unutterable  misery,  who  there  sat 
bound  in  affliction  and  irons  ;  and  over  that  Valley 
hang  the  discouraging  clouds  of  confusion  :  Death, 
also,  doth  always  spread  his  wings  over  it.  In 
a  word,  it  is  every  whit  dreadful,  being  utterly 
without  order." 

This  is  almost  a  description  of  hell.  And  how 
much  more  afraid  men  are  of  the  image  of  hell  in 
this  world,  of  the  evils  which  here  are  a  type  of  it, 
than  they  are  of  its  reality  in  an  eternal  world  !  If 
these  men  had  been  as  much  afraid  of  losing  the 
favor  of  God,  and  of  being  shut  up  in  the  prison 
of  his  wrath  forever,  as  they  were  of  the  terrors  of 
this  Valley,  they  would  have  gone  through  it,  sing- 
ing with  David,  I  will  fear  no  evil.  For  what  are 
all  the  difficulties  that  can  be  met  with  in  this  life, 
if  in  the  end  we  may  have  the  light  of  God's  coun- 
tenance I  A  hearty  desire  after  God,  and  a  right 
fear  of  hell,  will  put  to  flight  every  other  fear, 
will  make  every  evil  comparatively  easy  to  be  con 
quered,  or  light  to  be  borne. 

In  this  disconsolate  situation,  Christian  was 
greatly  encouraged,  because  he  thought  he  heard 
the  voice  of  another  pilgrim  singing  before  him, 
which  turned  out  afterwards  to  be  Faithful.  He 


344  CHRISTIAN   IN   THE 

called  out,  but  got  no  answer,  for  this  other  pilgrim 
deemed  himself  also  to  have  been  alone,  and  knew 
not  what  to  make  of  it.  In  truth,  when  the  soul  is 
in  this  experience,  it  seems  as  though  never  a  living 
creature  had  been  in  it  before ;  it  seems  to  itself 
utterly  alone,  and  desolate.  Nevertheless,  that 
sound  of  singing  was  a  great  comfort  to  Christian ; 
for  he  said  within  himself,  Whoever  this  be,  it  is 
clear  that  he  fears  God,  and  that  God  is  with  him> 
for  he  could  not  otherwise  go  singing  through  this 
horrid  Valley  ;  and  if  God  is  with  him,  why  may  he 
not  be  with  me,  though  it  is  now  so  deep  dark  that 
I  cannot  perceive  him ;  yet,  by  the  time  I  have 
gone  a  little  farther  I  may  find  him.  By  and  by 
the  day  broke ;  then  said  Christian,  He  hath 
turned  the  Shadow  of  Death  into  the  morning. 

Now,  if  you  wish  to  trace  Bunyan's  own  expe- 
rience in  a  very  striking  manner  in  this  powerful 
sketch,  you  must  turn  to  his  own  account  in  the 
Grace  Abounding,  of  the  first  breaking  of  the 
dawn  in  his  own  soul  after  his  dismal  night  in  the 
pit,  the  prison,  and  the  Death  Valley;  you  must 
note  the  manner  in  which  he  looked  back  upon 
the  dangers  through  which  he  had  been  passing,  the 
manner  in  which  he  began  to  approach  and  examine 
by  the  daylight,  the  fears  and  temptations  that  had 
been  so  terrible  to  him,  that  had  so  shaken  and  well 
nigh  distracted  his  soul.  Just  so  did  Christian 
look  back  upon  the  ditches  and  the  quags,  the  hob- 
goblins, dragons,  and  satyrs  of  the  pit,  discoverable 
by  the  daylight ;  according  to  that  Scripture,  He  dis- 
covereth  deep  things  out  of  darkness,  and  bringeth 
to  light  the  Shadow  of  Death. 


VALLEY  OF  THE  SHADOW  OF  DEATH.   345 

Now,  as  we  have  compared  the  experience  of 
Christian  in  the  Valley  of  Humiliation  with  that  of 
the  pilgrims  under  guidance  of  Mr.  Greatheart,  so 
we  ought  to  compare  the  two  passages  through 
the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death  ;  and  much 
instruction  may  be  gained  thereby.  Christiana 
and  her  company  were  at  one  time  in  great  dark- 
ness. "  Their  conductor  did  go  before  them,  till 
they  came  at  a  place,  where  was  cast  up  a  pit  the 
whole  breadth  of  the  way ;  and  before  they  could  be 
prepared  to  go  over  that,  a  great  mist  and  darkness 
fell  upon  them,  so  that  they  could  not  see.  Then 
said  the  pilgrims,  Alas,  what  now  shall  we  do  ? 
But  their  guide  made  answer,  Fear  not,  stand  still, 
and  see  what  an  end  will  be  put  to  this  also.  So 
they  staid  there,  because  their  path  was  marred. 
They  then  also  thought  that  they  did  hear  more 
apparently  the  noise  and  rushing  of  the  enemies  ; 
the  fire  also  and  smoke  of  the  pit  was  much  easier 
to  be  discerned.  Then,  said  Christiana  to  Mercy, 
Now  I  see  what  my  poor  husband  went  through ; 
I  have  heard  much  of  this  place,  but  I  never 
was  here  before  now.  Poor  man !  he  went  here 
all  alone  in  the  night ;  he  had  night  almost  quite 
through  the  way ;  also,  these  fiends  were  busy 
about  him,  as  if  they  would  have  torn  him  in 
pieces.  Many  have  spoken  of  it,  but  none  can 
tell  what  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death  should 
mean  until  they  come  in  themselves.  The  heart 
knoweth  its  own  bitterness ;  and  a  stranger  inter- 
meddleth  not  with  its  joy.  To  be  here  is  a  fearful 
thing." 

"  This,  said  Mr.  Greatheart,  is  like  doing  busi- 


346  CHRISTIAN    IN    THE 

ness  in  great  waters,  or  like  going  down  into  the 
deep  ;  this  is  like  being  in  the  heart  of  the  sea,  and 
like  going  down  to  the  bottoms  of  the  mountains  ; 
now  it  seems  as  if  the  earth  with  its  bars,  were 
about  us  forever.  '  But  let  them  that  walk  in 
darkness,  and  have  no  light,  trust  in  the  name  of. 
the  Lord,  and  stay  upon  their  God.'  For  my  part, 
as  I  have  told  you  already,  I  have  gone  often 
through  this  valley,  and  have  been  much  harder 
put  to  it,  than  now  I  am ;  and  yet,  you  see  I  am 
alive.  I  would  not  boast,  for  that  I  am  not  my  own 
Saviour.  But  I  trust  we  shall  have  a  good  deli- 
verance. Come,  let  us  pray  for  light  to  Him  that 
can  lighten  our  darkness,  and  that  can  rebuke,  not 
these  only,  but  all  the  Satans  in  hell.  So  they 
cried  and  prayed,  and  God  sent  light  and  deliver- 
ance." 

A  remark  pregnant  with  heavenly  sense  was 
dropped  by  one  of  the  boys,  which  pilgrims  beset 
with  dangers  and  difficulties  would  do  well  to 
ponder.  "  It  is  not  so  bad,"  said  he,  "  to  go 
through  here  as  it  would  be  to  abide  here  always  ; 
and  for  aught  I  know,  one  reason  why  we  must  go 
this  way  to  the  house  prepared  for  us,  is  that  our 
home  may  be  made  the  sweeter  to  us."  In  this 
remark  is  much  Christian  wisdom  and  beauty.  I 
am  reminded  of  Wesley's  hymn,  or  something  like 
it;— 

The  rougher  our  way,  the  shorter  our  stay, 

The  ruder  the  blast, 
The  sweeter  our  quiet,  when  storms  are  all  past 

We  may  also  be  reminded  of  those  sweet  expressive 
lines  by  Baxter, 


VALLEY   OF   THE    SHADOW   OF    DEATH.       347 


Christ  leads  me  through  no  darker  rooms 
Than  he  went  through  before : 

He  that  into  God's  kingdom  comes 
Must  enter  by  that  door. 


But  the  best  of  all  commentaries  on  the  intent 
and  meaning  of  this  passage  through  the  Valley  of 
the  Shadow  of  Death  is  to  be  found  in  Bunyan's 
thoughts  and  remarks  upon  other  good  men 
who  have  had  to  go  through  it,  uttered  while  he 
himself  was  quite  in  darkness,  and  was  looking  to 
those  bright  examples,  and  wishing  from  the 
bottom  of  his  soul  that  he  also  might  thus  be 
the  favored  one  of  God.  Poor  Bunyan  !  this  very 
darkness,  these  very  desperate  distresses,  proved, 
in  the  end,  that  he  was  himself  to  be  ranked 
among  those  favored  ones  ;  for  when  his  spirit  was 
overwhelmed  within  him,  then  God  knew  his  path  ; 
then  was  God  leading  the  blind  by  a  way  that  he 
knew  not.  "  Oh,  how  my  soul,"  says  Bunyan, 
"  did  at  this  time  prize  the  preservation  that  God 
did  set  about  his  people !  Ah,  how  safely  did  I 
see  them  walk,  whom  God  had  hedged  in  !  Now 
did  those  blessed  places,  that  spake  of  God's 
keeping  his  people,  shine  like  the  sun  before  me, 
though  not  to  comfort  me,  yet  to  show  me  the 
blessed  state  and  heritage  of  those  whom  the  Lord 
had  blessed.  Now  I  saw  that  as  God  had  his  hand 
in  all  the  providences  and  dispensations  that  over- 
take his  elect,  so  he  had  his  hand  in  all  the  tempta- 
tions that  they  had  to  sin  against  him,  not  to  ani- 
mate them  in  wickedness,  but  to  choose  their 
temptations  and  troubles  for  them,  and  also  to 
leave  them  for  a  time  to  such  things  only,  that 

45 


348  CHRISTIAN   IN  THE 

might  not  destroy,  but  humble  them  ;  as  might  not 
put  them  beyond,  but  lay  them  in,  the  way  of  the 
renewing  his  mercy.  But  oh!  what  love,  what 
care,  what  kindness  and  mercy  did  I  now  see, 
mixing  itself  with  the  most  severe  and  dreadful 
of  all  God's  ways  to  his  people !  He  would 
let  David,  Hezekiah,  Solomon,  Peter,  and  others 
fall,  but  he  would  not  let  them  fall  into  the  sin 
unpardonable,  nor  into  hell  for  sin.  O  !  thought 
I,  these  be  the  men  that  God  hath  loved  ;  these  be 
the  men  that  God,  though  he  chastiseth  them, 
keeps  them  in  safety  by  him,  and  them  whom  he 
makes  to  abide  under  the  Shadow  of  the  Al- 
mighty." 

Sweet  are  the  uses  of  adversity  !  In  God's  hand 
indeed  they  are ;  when  he  puts  his  children  into 
the  furnace  of  affliction,  it  is  that  he  may  thor- 
oughly purge  away  all  their  dross.  A  great 
writer  has  spoken  with  great  beauty  of  the  resources 
which  God  has  placed  within  us  for  bringing  good 
out  of  evil,  or,  at  least,  for  greatly  alleviating  our 
trials,  in  the  cases  of  sickness  and  misfortune. 
"  The  cutting  and  irritating  grain  of  sand,"  he 
says,  "  which  by  accident  or  incaution  has  got 
within  the  shell,  incites  the  living  inmate  to  secrete 
from  its  own  resources  the  means  of  coating  the 
intrusive  substance.  And  is  it  not,  or  may  it  not  be, 
even  so  with  the  irregularities  and  unevenness  of 
health  and  fortune  in  our  own  case  I  We  too  may 
turn  diseases  into  pearls."  But  how  much  more 
wonderful  are  the  wisdom  and  mercy  of  God,  in 
making  the  spiritual  temptations  and  distresses  of 
his  people  their  necessary  discipline  for  their  highest 


VALLEY  OF  THE  SHADOW  OF  DEATH.    349 

good,  the  means  for  the  greatest  perfection  and 
stability  of  their  characters.  This  indeed  is  a 
wonderful  transmutation.  God,  says  the  holy 
Leighton,  hath  many  sharp  cutting  instruments 
and  rough  files  for  the  polishing  of  his  jewels  ;  and 
those  he  especially  esteems,  and  means  to  make 
the  most  resplendent,  he  hath  oftenest  his  tools 
upon. 

Beautifully  are  the  uses  of  temptations  and  trials, 
external  and  inward,  illustrated  in  that  old  familiar 
hymn  of  Newton,  so  like  in  its  language  and  spirit 
to  some  hymns  which  Cowper  wrote  from  similar 
experience. 

These  inward  trials  I  employ 
From  self  and  pride  to  set  thee  free  ; 
To  break  thy  schemes  of  earthly  joy, 
And  make  thee  find  thine  all  in  me. 

It  seems  very  strange  that  with  these  truths,  so 
fully  set  forth  in  the  Word  of  God,  and  so  illustrated 
in  the  examples  of  many  shining  Christians,  still, 
generation  after  generation,  all  men,  all  pilgrims, 
should  have  to  learn  them  for  themselves,  should 
never  be  satisfied  of  them,  till  made  to  believe 
by  their  own  experience.  Every  pilgrim  ex-/K 
pects  of  Christ  that  by  his  love's  constraining 
power  he  will  subdue  the  sins  and  hidden  evils  of 
the  heart,  and  give  the  soul  rest  and  relief  from  its 
corruptions  all  the  way  of  its  pilgrimage.  Yet  every 
pilgrim  in  turn  has  to  go  through  this  Valley,  has  to 
learn  by  himself  both  the  dreadful  evils  of  the  heart, 
and  the  power  of  temptation,  and  the  greatness  of 
deliverance  by  the  Almighty  power  and  love  of  the 
Saviour.  He  cannot  learn  this  by  hearing  other* 


350  CHRISTIAN    IN   THE 

tell  it  to  him ;  God  must  teach  him  by  the  precious 
costly  way  of  personal  discipline.  He  can  no 
more  come  to  the  stature  of  a  perfect  man  in 
Christ  Jesus  without  this  discipline,  than  a  babe 
could  grow  up  to  manhood  without  learning  at 
first  to  creep,  then  to  walk,  then  to  speak,  to  read, 
to  exercise  all  faculties.  The  great  discipline 
which  we  need  as  pilgrims  is  mostly  the  expe- 
rience of  our  own  weakness,  and  the  art  of  find- 
ing our  strength  in  Christ;  but  it  is  astonishing 
what  severe  treatment  is  oftentimes  necessary  to 
teach  this,  apparently  the  simplest  and  most  obvious 
of  all  lessons,  but  yet  the  deepest  and  most  dif- 
ficult to  be  learned. 

We  are  now  to  be  introduced  to  a  new  pilgrim, 
and  Christian  is  no  more  to  go  on  his  way  alone. 
The  sweet  Christian  communion  depicted  in 
this  book  forms  one  of  the  most  delightful  fea- 
tAres  in  it,  and  Faithful  and  Hopeful  are  both 
of  them  portraits  that  stand  out  in  as  firm  re- 
lief as  that  of  Christian  himself.  Faithful  is  the 
Martyr  Pilgrim,  who  goes  in  a  Chariot  of  fire  to 
heaven,  and  leaves  Christian  alone ;  Hopeful 
springs,  as  it  were,  out  of  Faithful's  ashes,  and 
supplies  his  place  all  along  the  remainder  of  the 
pilgrimage.  The  communion  between  these  loving 
Christians,  their  sympathy  and  share  in  each 
other's  distresses,  their  mutual  counsels  and  en- 
couragements, temptations  and  dangers,  experience 
and  discipline,  their  united  joys  and  sorrows,  and 
their  very  passing  of  the  river  of  death  together, 
form  the  sweetest  of  all  examples  of  the  true 
fellowship  of  saints,  united  to  the  same  Saviour, 


VALLEY  OF  THE  SHADOW  OF  DEATH.    351 

made  to  drink  into  the  same  Spirit,  baptized  with  the 
same  sufferings,  partakers  of  the  same  consolations, 
crowned  with  the  same  crown  of  life,  entering 
together  upon  glory  everlasting. 

Here  I  cannot  but  speak  again  of  God's  ten- 
der love  to  his  people  in  their  spiritual  distresses. 
It  is  but  a  little  while,  at  the  uttermost,  that  he 
lets  any  walk  in  darkness,  and  always  this  dark- 
ness prepares  for  greater  light,  and  sometimes  God 
darkens  our  room,  that  he  may  show  us  with 
greater  effect  those  visions  of  his  own  glory,  on 
which  he  will  have  our  attention  to  be  fixed,  and 
which  we  either  will  not  or  cannot  see  in  the  glare 
of  the  noon  day  of  this  world.  But  always  his 
thoughts  towards  his  afflicted  people  are  thoughts 
of  peace  and  mercy,  and  his  language,  even  when 
they  seem  to  be  deserted  of  God,  is  of  great  ten- 
derness. "  For  a  small  moment  have  I  forsaken 
thee,  but  with  great  mercies  will  I  gather  thee.  In 
a  little  wrath  I  hid  my  face  from  thee  for  a  moment, 
but  with  everlasting  kindness  will  I  have  mercy  on 
thee,  saith  the  Lord,  thy  Redeemer." 

There  are  many  things  which  may  constitute  a 
Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death  to  the  believer. 
There  may  be  such  an  array  of  external  evils  as  to 
do  this.  Sickness,  poverty,  want  like  an  armed 
man,  desertion  and  loss  of  friends,  the  disap- 
pointment and  failure  of  all  natural  hopes  and 
sources  of  enjoyment,  the  utter  destruction  of  all 
schemes  of  usefulness  and  plans  of  life,  the  tri- 
umphing of  the  wicked,  and  the  apparent  prostra- 
tion of  the  cause  of  God  ;  all  these  things,  or  any 
of  them  may  almost  overwhelm  the  soul,  and  be  to 


352  CHRISTIAN   IN   THE 

it  as  a  death-darkness.  Elijah,  Jeremiah,  Job, 
David,  were  stricken  down  beneath  such  evils, 
sometimes  accumulated  together,  so  that  they  were 
ready  to  cry  out  for  Death  as  a  friend.  But  these 
things  are  not  the  real  Valley ;  this  is  not  the 
hiding  of  God's  countenance ;  there  may  be  all 
these  things,  and  yet  heaven's  sunshine  in  the  soul. 
But  when  God  departs,  or  when  the  soul  loses 
sight  of  him,  then  begins  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow 
of  Death.  For,  who  can  stand  against  such  aban- 
donment? Who  can  endure  a  sense  of  the  wrath 
of  God  abiding  on  the  soul  I 

Tis  Paradise  if  Thou  art  here 
If  Thou  depart, 'tis  hell! 

This  is  the  language  of  the  believer's  heart,  and 
this  too,  is  the  representation  of  the  Word  of  God, 
and  this  is  the  reality  of  things.  And  men  only 
need  to  see  things  as  they  are,  and  to  feel  things 
as  they  are,  and  they  will  see  and  feel  that  they 
cannot  live  without  God  ;  that  without  God,  though 
every  thing  might  be  Heaven  in  appearance,  yet,  in 
reality  it  must  be  Hell.  I  say,  men  only  need  to 
see  and  feel  the  truth,  in  order  to  realize  this,  for 
God  is  the  only  life  of  the  soul,  and  if  he  be  not  in 
it,  and  it  be  not  alive  in  him,  then  is  its  existence 
inevitable  misery.  The  heart  without  God  is  at 
enmity  against  him,  and  the  conscience  without  God 
is  at  enmity  against  the  heart,  and  the  thoughts 
without  God  are  self-accusing,  fiery,  tormenting ; 
and  the  imagination  without  God  becomes  a  pro- 
phetic power  in  the  soul,  not  only  to  start  into 
fresher,  fiercer  life  its  present  distress  and  sense  of 


VALLEY  OP  THE  SHADOW  OF  DEATH.    353 

sin  and  desolation,  but  to  image  to  it  all  fearful 
forebodings  of  future  wrath,  of  interminable  deso- 
lation and  misery,  to  fill  its  horizon  with  upbraiding 
faces,  sometimes  with  fiend-like  forms  waiting  to 
receive  it,  and  brandishing  a  whip  of  the  twisted 
scorpions  of  remembered,  known,  unforgiven  sins. 
The  gate  of  the  future,  through  which  the  soul  must 
pass,  is  in  such  a  case, 

With  dreadful  faces  thronged,  and  fiery  arms  ! 

The  sins  of  the  soul,  without  God,  without  Christ, 
are  the  prophets  of  its  coming  woes,  and  its 
life,  when  surrounded  by  them,  when  under  a 
sense  of  them,  when  conscience  calls  them  up,  and 
there  is  no  sense  of  forgiveness,  is  the  Valley  of  the 
Shadow  of  Death.  This  is  the  reality  of  things, 
even  in  this  world,  when  the  soul  has  a  sense  of  its 
own  true  nature  and  accountably.  And  yet,  in  this 
world  it  is  but  the  prefiguring  type  of  that  Eternal 
Vale,  where  their  worm  dieth  not  and  the  fire  is 
not  quenched.  Here,  it  is  but  the  Valley  of  the 
Shadow  of  Death  ;  once  entered  in  Eternity,  once 
experienced  there,  it  is  Death  itself,  Death  without 
God,  say  rather,  Life  without  God,  with  all  those 
revenging  miseries  as  Realities,  which  here  at 
the  uttermost  were  but  predictions  and  merciful 
warnings  to  flee  from  the  Wrath  to  come  ! 

Ah,  many  a  man,  who  is  not  a  Christian  Pilgrim, 
enters  this  Valley  in  this  world,  has  experience  of 
its  horrors,  who  never  tells  what  he  felt,  never  lets 
it  be  known  that  he  was  so  far  awakened  as  to  see 
and  feel  what  dreadful  elements  and  faces  were 


354  CHRISTIAN    IN    THE 

round  about  him,  pressing  upon  his  soul.  Some- 
times the  souls  of  impenitent  and  hardened  men 
are  shaken  with  the  terrors  of  God  in  this  Valley, 
and  wrapped  in  its  gloom ! 

A  very  graphic  writer  (Mr.  Borrow,  in  his  in- 
structive book,  The  Bible  in  Spain)  describes  an 
interview  with  an  imprisoned  murderer,  who,  at 
the  close  of  the  conversation,  "  folded  his  arms, 
leaned  back  against  the  wall,  and  appeared  to 
sink  gradually  into  one  of  his  reveries.  I  looked 
him  in  the  face,  and  spoke  to  him,  but  he  did  not 
seem  either  to  hear  or  see  me.  His  mind  was  per- 
haps wandering  in  that  dreadful  Valley  of  the  Sha- 
dow of  Death,  into  which  the  children  of  earth, 
while  living,  occasionally  find  their  way  ;  the  dread- 
ful region  where  there  is  no  water,  where  hope 
dwelleth  not,  where  nothing  lives  but  the  undying 
worm.  This  Valley  is  the  fac-simile  of  hell,  and 
*ie  who  has  entered  it  has  experienced  here  on  earth 
"or  a  time,  what  the  spirits  of  the  condemned  are 
loomed  to  suffer  through  ages  without  end." 

Yes  !  there  is  much  foretaste  of  this  suffering, 
even  in  this  world,  and  often,  even  amidst  their 
guilty  pleasures,  the  wicked  are  made  to  feel  that 
they  are  themselves  like  the  troubled  sea,  whose 
waters  cast  up  mire  and  dirt.  When  Conscience 
takes  a  man  in  hand,  and  leads  him  up  and  down 
through  the  gallery  of  his  own  remembered  sins, 
and  stops  at  this  picture  and  that,  and  points  out 
shades  and  colorings  that  he  never  saw  before,  and 
sometimes  darkens  the  room,  and  takes  down  a 
vivid  transparency  of  guilt,  and  holds  it  before  the 
fire  to  his  vision,  so  that  his  past  life  seems  to  burn 


VALLEY  OF  THE  SHADOW  OF  DEATH.    355 

before  him,  it  does  not  take  long  in  such  employ- 
ment to  make  the  room  seem  walled  with  retribu- 
tive flames,  and  peopled  with  condemning  fiends. 
Without  the  sense  of  God's  forgiving  mercy  in 
Christ,  such  employment  makes  a  man  enter  the 
Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death,  and  there,  though 
he  may  always  have  thrown  ridicule  upon  these 
things  among  his  boon  companions,  yet  these,  alone, 
with  himself,  the  sights  which  he  sees,  and  the 
sounds  which  he  hears  are  intolerable. 

When  the  child  of  God,  from  whatever  cause, 
wanders  into  this  Valley,  and  has  the  face  of  God 
hidden  from  him,  then  the  universe  to  him  is 
covered  with  gloom ;  then  the  dead  weight  of 
anxiety,  as  the  shadow  of  sepulchral  mountains' 
is  on  its  spirit ;  he  enters  into  darkness,  and  is 
wandering  on  the  borders  of  despair.  God  hides 
his  face,  and  we  are  troubled.  The  gloomy, 
awful  solemnity  and  coldness,  that  like  a  twilight 
pall  enshroud  the  earth  in  a  deep  eclipse  of  the  sun 
at  noonday,  making  all  nature  to  shudder,  and  the 
animals  to  cry  out  with  terror,  do  faintly  image 
forth  the  spiritual  coldness  and  gloom  of  the  soul, 
when  the  face  of  God  is  hidden  from  it.  That 
eclipse  forebodes  to  the  soul  the  blackness  of  dark- 
ness forever.  Hence  the  earnest  cry  of  David, 
Hide  not  thy  face  from  me,  lest  I  become  like  them 
that  go  down  to  the  pit. 

At  such  times  Satan  may  have  much  business 
with  a  child  of  God.  "  For  although,"  as  Mr 
Goodwin  observes,  "  Satan  cannot  immediately 
wound  the  conscience,  and  make  impressions  of 
God's  wrath  upon  it,  (for  as  no  creature  can  shed 
46 


356  CHRISTIAN    IN    THE 

abroad  God's  love,  and  cause  the  creature  to  taste 
the  sweetness  of  it,  so  neither  the  bitterness  of  his 
wrath,  but  God  is  equally  the  reporter  of  both,)  yet, 
when  the  Holy  Ghost  hath  lashed  and  whipt  the 
conscience,  and  made  it  tender  once,  and  fetched 
off  the  skin,  Satan  then,  by  renewing  the  experi- 
mental remembrance  of  those  lashes,  which  the 
soul  hath  had  from  the  Spirit,  may  amaze  the 
soul  with  fears  of  an  infinitely  sorer  vengeance 
yet  to  come,  and  flash  representations  of  hell  fire  in 
their  consciences,  from  those  real  glimpses  they 
have  already  felt,  in  such  a  manner  as  to  wilder 
the  soul  into  vast  and  unthought  of  horrors." 

In  the  eternal  world,  there  is  no  living  without 
God,  but  a  dying,  an  eternal  dying.  It  is  death  in 
life,  and  life  in  death,  for  the  soul  to  be  without 
God  ;  and  the  discovery  and  sense  of  these  things 
in  the  eternal  world,  amidst  the  convictions  of 
despair,  will  be  to  the  soul  as  if  a  man,  who  has 
been  long  time  dead  and  buried,  should  suddenly 
come  to  life  amidst  enfolding  slimy  worms,  a 
corrupt  decaying  carcass,  in  mould,  gangrene, 
and  putrefaction.  What  need  of  flames,  if  the 
sinner  be  left  to  the  full  sense  and  working  of  his 
own  corruptions  ?  What  man  of  sin  is  there, 
who,  if  he  will  judge  candidly,  can  do  otherwise 
than  acknowledge  that  he  finds  within  himself  ele- 
ments of  evil,  which,  if  left  to  work  undisturbed, 
unimpeded,  unmingled,  will  work  absolute  misery 
and  ruin.  Man  of  sin !  wilt  thou  stay  in  these 
corruptions,  and  die  in  them  ,  or  wilt  thou  go  for 
deliverance  to  Christ  Jesus,  to  him  who  alone  can 
put  out  these  fires,  can  kill  this  undying  worm, 


VALLEY  OF  THE  SHADOW  OF  DEATH.   357 

can  drive  the  fiends  from  thy  soul,  can  throw 
death  itself  into  hell,  and  make  the  fountain  of 
love,  life,  and  blessedness  to  spring  up  within 
thee! 

Just  as  Christian  gets  out  of  the  Valley  of  the 
Shadow  of  Death,  he  passed  by  a  place  of  bones, 
sculls,  images  and  crosses,  the  abode  of  Pope 
and  Pagan,  whom  Bunyan  most  appropriately  puts 
into  the  same  cave  together,  though  Pagan  had 
been  dead  long  time,  and  Pope  now  occupied 
his  place  alone.  Popery  and  Paganism  are  two 
incarnations  of  depravity  wonderfully  similar, 
almost  the  same  ;  but  Popery  has,  by  far,  the 
greatest  dominion  of  "  the  blood,  bones,  ashes 
and  mangled  bodies  of  pilgrims."  Christian 
passed  by  without  harm,  for  now  the  living  giant 
could  do  no  more  than  grin  and  bite  his  nails, 
and  growl  at  the  passing  pilgrims.  "  You  will 
never  mend  till  more  of  you  be  burned."  Pos- 
sibly another  burning  is  yet  to  come,  for  Giant 
Pope  seems  in  some  respects  to  be  renewing  his 
age,  and  he  has  now  so  many  helpers,  that  it 
would  not  be  surprising,  if  he  should  come  out 
of  his  Cave,  and  once  more,  before  the  final  fall 
of  Anti-Christ,  be  seen  arrayed  in  all  the  power 
and  terrors  of  persecution.  The  proximity  of  this 
black  Golgotha  of  Popery  to  the  Valley  of  the 
Shadow  of  Death  is  very  natural,  considering  the 
one  as  the  emblem  of  the  greatest  external  evils 
that  can  be  met  on  the  way  of  this  pilgrimage,  and 
the  other  as  marking  the  opposite  extreme  of  the 
horrors  of  inward  desolation  and  spiritual  misery  in 
the  soul. 


358  CHRISTIAN    IN    THE 

After  encountering  all  these  dangers,  there  was 
a  mount  of  vision,  up  which  Christian  with  ala- 
crity ascended,  whence  he  could  see  far  off  over  the 
prospect  before  him.  The  air  was  clear  and  bright, 
its  reflection  of  all  images  distinct  and  certain, 
the  mists  of  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death 
were  far  below  him,  and  came  not  to  this  border, 
the  air  was  healthful  and  bracing,  he  seemed 
nearer  to  Heaven  than  he  had  been  in  all  his  pil- 
grimage, and  so  light  and  elastic  for  his  journey, 
that  it  seemed  as  if  he  could  have  flown.  Here 
was  "an  earnest  of  the  Spirit,"  a  refreshment  after 
toil  and  danger.  Here,  as  he  looked  onward,  he 
saw  Faithful  before  him,  and  shouted  out  to  him 
to  stay,  for  he  would  be  his  companion.  But  how 
should  Faithful  know  that  it  was  not  the  voice  of 
some  treacherous  spirit  from  the  Pit  1  Faithful's 
answer  shows  the  spirit  of  the  future  martyr.  I 
am  upon  my  life,  said  he,  and  the  Avenger  of 
blood  is  behind  me ;  I  may  not  stay.  This  net- 
tled Christian,  and  now  comes  a  beautiful  and  most 
instructive  incident,  for  Christian,  summoning  all 
his  strength,  ran  so  earnestly,  that  he  soon  got 
up  with  Faithful,  but  not  content  with  this,  and 
being  a  little  moved  by  spiritual  pride,  at  his 
own  attainments,  he  did  run  on  before  him  ;  so 
the  last  was  first.  Then  did  Christian  vain-glo- 
riously  smile !  Ah  what  a  smile  was  that !  how 
much  sin,  not  humble  spiritual  gratitude  and  joy, 
was  there  in  it !  But  now  see  how  he  that  exalteth 
himself  shall  be  abased,  and  how  surely  along  with 
spiritual  pride  comes  carelessness,  false  security 
and  a  grievous  fall.  Not  taking  good  heed  to  his 


VALLEY  OF  THE  SHADOW  OF  DEATH.    859 

feet,  Christian  suddenly  stumbled  and  fell,  and 
the  fall  was  such,  that  he  could  not  rise  again,  till 
Faithful,  whom  he  had  vain-gloriously  outrun,  came 
>ap  to  help  him. 

This  is  one  of  the  most  instructive  incidents  of 
the  pilgrimage,  and  it  might  be  applied  to  many 
things.  Let  the  Christian,  in  pursuing  the  work 
of  Christ,  take  care  of  his  motives.  Earthly  am- 
bition is  a  heinous  sin,  carried  into  spiritual  things. 
Be  not  wise  in  your  own  conceits.  Let  us  not  be 
desirous  of  vain-glory,  provoking  one  another, 
envying  one  another.  See  that  you  look  not 
with  self-complacency  upon  your  own  attainments. 
A  man  may  vain-gloriously  smile  within  himself,  at 
his  own  labors,  at  the  applause  of  others,  or  in 
the  comparison  of  others  with  himself,  and  when 
he  does  this,  then  he  is  in  danger.  When  Chris- 
tian did  vain-gloriously  smile,  then  did  Christian 
meet  a  most  mortifying  fall.  Peter's  boasting  of 
himself  before  the  other  disciples  was  not  far  off 
from  Peter's  fall.  Let  nothing  be  done  through 
strife  or  vain-glory,  but  in  lowliness  of  mind  let 
each  esteem  others  better  than  himself.  Yet, 
there  is  a  right  way  of  coming  behind  in  no  gift, 
enriched  by  Jesus  Christ.  Whoso  seeketh  this 
enriching  for  himself,  seeketh  it  also  for  others. 
Let  this  lesson  not  be  forgotten,  Then  did  Chris- 
tian vain-gloriously  smile,  and  when  he  smiled, 
then  he  stumbled. 

Now  what  happiness  it  was  for  these  Christians 
to  meet  each  other!  What  delightful  comparison  of 
each  other's  experience,  what  strengthening  of  each 
other's  faith  and  joy!  Each  had  not  a  little  to  tell 


360  CHRISTIAN    IN    THE 

peculiar  to  himself,  for  they  had  met  with  various 
dangers,  temptations,  enemies.  They  were  both 
from  the  same  City  of  Destruction  ;  they  were  now 
dear  friends  going  to  the  City  of  Immanuel  ;  de- 
lightful indeed  it  was  to  call  to  mind  former  things, 
and  trace  the  loving  kindness  of  the  Lord  thus  far 
on  their  pilgrimage.  Faithful  had  escaped  the 
Slough  of  Despond,  but  he  had  fallen  into  worse 
dangers.  The  Old  Man  with  his  deeds  had  beset 
him.  Then  Discontent  beset  him  in  the  Valley  of 
Humiliation,  and  told  him  how  he  was  offending 
all  his  worldly  friends  by  making  such  a  fool  of 
himself.  But  of  all  his  bold  enemies,  Shame,  in 
that  Valley,  was  the  worst  to  deal  with,  the  most 
distressing  to  Faithful's  spirit,  whom  indeed  he 
could  scarce  shake  out  of  his  company.  The  delin- 
eation of  this  character  by  Bunyan,  is  a  masterly 
grouping  together  of  the  arguments  used  by  men  of 
this  world  against  religion,  in  ridicule  and  contempt 
of  it,  and  of  their  feelings  and  habits  of  opinion  in 
regard  to  it.  Faithful's  account  of  him  and  of  his 
arguments  is  a  piece  of  vigorous  satire,  full  of  truth 
and  life.  Faithful  was  hard  put  to  it  to  get  rid 
of  this  fellow,  but  he  met  with  no  other  difficulty 
quite  through  the  Valley,  and  as  to  the  Shadow  of 
Death,  to  him  it  was  sunlight. 

The  next  character  brought  into  view  is  that  of 
Talkative,  a  professor  of  religion  by  the  tongue, 
but  not  in  the  life,  a  hearer  of  the  word,  but  not  a 
doer,  a  great  disgrace  to  religion,  and  in  the  de- 
scription of  the  common  people,  a  saint  abroad, 
and  a  devil  at  home.  But  he  was  a  great  talker. 
He  could  talk  "  of  things  heavenly  or  things 


VALLEY  OF  THE  SHADOW  OF  DEATH.   361 

earthly ;  things  moral  or  things  evangelical ;  things 
sacred  or  things  profane  ;  things  past  or  things  to 
come ;  things  foreign  or  things  at  home  ;  things 
more  essential,  or  things  circumstantial : — provided 
that  all  be  done  to  profit."  Faithful  was  much 
taken  with  this  man.  What  a  brave  companion 
have  we  got,  said  he  to  Christian  !  surely  this  man 
will  make  a  very  excellent  pilgrim.  Christian, 
who  knew  him  well,  related  his  parentage  and 
character,  and  afterwards  Faithful  proceeded,  ac- 
cording to  Christian's  directions,  to  converse  with 
Talkative  in  such  a  way  upon  the  subject  of 
religion,  as  very  soon  proved  what  he  was  in 
reality,  and  delivered  them  of  his  company. 
Then  went  they  on,  talking  of  all  that  they  had 
seen  by  the  way,  with  such  deep  interest  as 
made  the  wilderness,  through  which  they  were 
passing,  appear  well  nigh  like  a  fruitful  field. 
And  now  they  rejoiced  again  to  meet  Evangelist, 
and  listen  to  his  encouraging  and  animating  ex- 
hortations, of  which,  as  they  were  now  near  the 
great  town  of  Vanity  Fair,  they  would  stand  in 
special  need.  Indeed,  it  was  partly  for  the  pur- 
pose of  forewarning  them  of  what  they  were  to 
meet  with  there,  and  to  exhort  them,  amidst  all 
persecutions,  to  quit  themselves  like  men,  that 
Evangelist  now  came  to  them.  His  voice,  so 
solemn  and  deep,  yet  so  inspiring  and  animating, 
sounded  like  the  tones  of  a  trumpet  on  the  eve  of 
battle. 

The  subject  of  the  trials  and  temptations   of 
the   Christian  in  this  part  of  the  Pilgrim's  Pro- 


362  CHRISTIAN    IN    THE    VALLEY,  &C. 

gress  finds  a  beautiful  commentary  in  the  hymn 
to  which  I  have  referred,  by  Newton. 


I  ask'd  the  Lord  that  I  might  grow 
In  faith,  and  love,  and  every  grace, 
Might  more  of  his  salvation  know, 
And  seek  more  earnestly  his  face. 

'Twas  he  who  taught  me  thus  to  pray, 
And  he,  I  trust,  has  answer'd  pray'r, 
But  answer  came  in  such  a  way, 
As  almost  drove  me  to  despair. 

I  hop'd  that  in  some  favor'd  hour, 
At  once  he'd  grant  me  my  request, 
And  by  his  love's  constraining  pow'r, 
Subdue  my  sins  and  give  me  rest. 

Instead  of  this,  he  made  me  feel 
The  hidden  evils  of  my  heart, 
And  let  the  angry  pow'rs  of  hell 
Assault  my  soul  in  ev'ry  part. 

Yea  more,  with  his  own  hand  he  seem'd 
Intent  to  aggravate  my  woe ; 
Cross'd  all  the  fair  designs  Ischem'd, 
Blasted  my  gourds,  and  laid  me  low. 

"  Lord,  why  is  this  ?"  I  trembling  cried, 
"  Wilt  thou  pursue  thy  worm  to  death  V 
"  'Tis  in  this  way,"  the  Lord  replied, 
"  I  answer  pray'r  for  grace  and  faith : 

"  These  inward  trials  I  employ, 
"  From  self  and  pride  to  set  thee  free ; 
"  And  break  thy  schemes  of  earthly  joy, 
"  That  thou  may'st  seek  thine  all  in  me.' 


CHRISTIAN  AND  FAITHFUL 

IN 

VANITY    FAIR. 


The  Vanity  Fair  of  this  world.— Temptations  to  worldliness.— The  deportment  of  the 
Pilgrims. — Their  strange  appearance  to  the  men  of  Vanity  Fair. — Their  trial  in  the 
Fair.— The  martyrdom  of  Faithful.— How  this  pilgrimage  is  regarded  in  our  day.— 
Sketch  of  Vanity  Fair  in  our  time.— Visit  to  Giant  Pope's  Cave.— Characters  of 
By-ends,  Money-love,  Hold-the-world,  and  Save-all. — Logic  of  Mr.  Money-love. — 
Temptations  to  filthy  lucre. — Demas  and  the  mines. — Danger  of  the  love  of  money, 
and  of  conformity  to  the  world. 

VANITY  FAIR  is  the  City  of  Destruction  in  its 
gala  dress,  in  its  most  seductive  sensual  allure- 
ments. It  is  this  world  in  miniature,  with  its 
various  temptations.  Hitherto  we  have  observed 
the  Pilgrims  by  themselves,  in  loneliness,  in 
obscurity,  in  the  hidden  life  and  experience  of 
the  people  of  God.  The  allegory  thus  far  has 
been  that  of  the  soul,  amidst  its  spiritual  enemies, 
toiling  towards  heaven  ;  now  there  comes  a  scene 
more  open,  tangible,  external ;  the  allurements  of 
the  world  are  to  be  presented,  with  the  manner  in 
which  the  true  Pilgrim  conducts  himself  amidst 
them.  It  was  necessary  that  Bunyan  should  show 
his  pilgrimage  in  its  external  as  well  as  its  secret 
spiritual  conflicts  ;  it  was  necessary  that  he  should 
draw  the  contrast  between  the  pursuits  and  deport- 

47 


864  CHRISTIAN   AND    FAITHFUL 

ment  of  the  children  of  this  world,  and  the  children 
of  light,  that  he  should  show  how  a  true  Pilgrim 
appears,  and  is  likely  to  be  regarded,  who,  amidst 
the  world's  vanities,  lives  above  the  world,  is  dead 
to  it,  and  walks  through  it  as  a  stranger  and  a  pil 
grim  towards  heaven. 

The  temptations  to  worldliness  are  the  strongest 
and  most  common  in  the  Christian  race  ;  they  are 
so  represented  in  Scripture  ;  we  are  told  of  the 
cares  of  this  world,  the  deceitfulness  of  riches,  and 
the  lusts  of  other  things  choking  the  word,  that  it 
becometh  unfruitful ;  and  in  many  passages  we 
are  warned  against  the  love  of  the  world,  the 
imitation  of  its  manners,  and  the  indulgence  of  its 
feelings.  Especially  in  that  striking  passage  in 
John,  and  the  corresponding  one  in  James.  Love 
not  the  world,  neither  the  things  that  are  in  the 
world.  If  any  man  love  the  world,  the  love  of  the 
Father  is  not  in  him.  For  all  that  is  of  the  world, 
the  lust  of  the  flesh,  and  the  lust  of  the  eyes,  and  the 
pride  of  life,  is  not  of  the  Father,  but  is  of  the  world. 
James  is  yet  more  severe.  Ye  adulterers  and 
adulteresses !  know  ye  not  that  the  friendship  of 
the  world  is  enmity  with  God  ?  Whosoever  there- 
fore will  be  a  friend  of  the  world  is  the  enemy  of 
God. 

Certainly,  it  was  to  illustrate  these  passages  that 
Bunyan  composed  this  portion  of  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress.  It  was  also  to  show  the  truth  of  that 
saying,  which  the  apostles  and  primitive  Christians 
seem  to  have  kept  among  the  choice  jewels  of 
truth  nearest  their  hearts,  among  their  amulets  of 
apples  of  gold,  in  pictures  of  silver,  that  through 


IN  VANITY  FAIR.  365 

much  tribulation  we  must  enter  into  the  kingdom 
of  heaven.  In  the  world  ye  shall  have  tribulation, 
said  our  blessed  Lord  to  his  disciples,  but  be  of 
good  cheer,  I  have  overcome  the  world.  If  the 
world  hate  you,  ye  know  that  it  hated  me  before  it 
hated  you.  I  have  chosen  you  out  of  the  world, 
and  ye  are  not  of  the  world,  even  as  I  am  not  of 
the  world,  therefore  the  world  hateth  you.  Bunyan 
would  show,  by  the  treatment  of  the  pilgrims  in 
Vanity  Fair,  that  this  hatred  is  not  gone  out  of 
existence.  He  would  show  that  the  Christian  life 
is  not  a  pilgrimage  merely  of  inward  experiences, 
but  that  they  who  will  live  godly  in  Christ  Jesus 
are  a  peculiar  people,  and  must,  in  some  sort  or 
other,  suffer  persecution.  They  are  strangers  in 
a  strange  country.  The  world,  its  spirit  and  pur- 
suits, are  foreign  from  and  hostile  to  their  habits, 
inclinations  and  duties,  as  children  of  the  Saviour. 
To  be  conformed  to  the  world  is  to  depart  from  the 
way  of  life ;  the  whole  race  of  genuine  pilgrims 
must  therefore  be  a  strange  and  singular  people,  a 
people  of  nonconformists,  whose  deportment  re- 
bukes and  reproves  the  world,  and  convinces  it 
of  sin.  It  does  this  just  so  far  as  they  live  up  to 
the  rules  of  their  pilgrimage. 

It  is  not  always  the  case,  however,  that  simple- 
hearted  godliness,  travelling  through  the  world, 
meets  with  such  persecution  as  Christian  and 
Faithful  did  in  passing  through  Vanity  Fair.  This 
sketch  of  Bunyan  borrows  some  shades  from  the 
severe  aspect  of  his  own  times ;  yet  the  general 
picture  is  a  picture  of  all  times,  the  general  les- 
sons are  lessons  for  the  instruction  of  all  pilgrims* 


CHRISTIAN    AND   FAITHFUL 

The  spirit  of  Fox's  old  Book  of  Martyrs  is  here  ; 
the  spirit  of  the  Reformation,  and  the  constancy 
and  endurance  of  those  who  rode  in  the  chariot  of 
fire  to  Heaven.  Bunyan  himself  was  almost  a 
Martyr-Pilgrim,  and  he  himself  had  passed  through 
Vanity  Fair  with  much  the  same  treatment  as 
Christian  and  Faithful  experienced  ;  this  passage 
is  a  copy  of  his  own  life,  not  less  than  the  passage 
through  the  terrors  of  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of 
Death.  Moreover,  the  picture  of  the  Fair  itself 
is  drawn  from  scenes  with  which  Bunyan  was 
familiar  in  England  ;  from  those  motley  assem- 
blages of  booths,  people,  and  sins,  still  to  be  wit- 
nessed in  that  country  under  the  names  of  Green- 
wich Fair,  Bartholomew  Fair,  and  others  ;  scenes 
where  may  be  witnessed  the  world  of  sin  in  minia- 
ture. These  places  served  Bunyan  for  the  set- 
ting of  his  allegory,  which  is  conducted  with  the 
utmost  beauty,  fulness  of  meaning,  and  truth  to 
nature. 

The  merchandise  of  this  Fair,  comprising  all 
conceivable  commodities  that  can  come  under  the 
categories  of  the  Apostle  John,  the  lust  of  the  flesh, 
the  lust  of  the  eyes,  and  the  pride  of  life,  is 
described  with  great  power  of  satire.  The  most 
abundant  commodity  was  the  merchandise  of  Rome, 
a  sort  of  ware  at  present  in  greater  demand  in 
Vanity  Fair,  than  of  long  time,  since  Bunyan  s 
day,  it  hath  been.  Through  this  place  of  Vanity 
Fair,  once  passed  the  Lord  of  life  and  glory,  when 
the  Prince  and  Owner  of  the  Fair  tempted  him 
with  the  offer  of  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world,  and 
the  glory  of  them. 


AT   VANITY    FAIR.  367 

In  this  Fair  the  garments  of  the  Pilgrims  were  so 
strange,  so  different,  from  the  raiment  of  the  men 
of  the  Fair ;  also  their  language,  being  "  that  of 
Canaan,"  was  so  unknown  that  they  passed  for 
barbarians,  and  were  treated  as  such.  Also,  their 
utter  indifference  as  to  all  the  merchandise  of  the 
Fair,  and  their  refusal  to  buy  thereof,  or  to  par- 
take in  the  vain  and  sinful  amusements  of  the  place, 
made  them  to  be  considered  as  persons  out  of 
their  senses.  So  there  was  a  great  hubbub  in  the 
Fair  about  them,  and  they  were  taken  and  con- 
fined in  the  Cage,  and  made  a  spectacle,  and  after- 
wards they  were  grievously  beaten,  as  being  the 
authors  of  such  a  disturbance.  These  men,  that 
have  turned  the  world  upside  down,  are  come  hither 
also.  But  their  patience,  forbearance,  and  gentle- 
ness of  deportment  did  win  them  some  friends  even 
among  the  men  of  the  Fair,  which  they  of  the  con- 
trary party  being  very  much  enraged  at,  it  was  at 
length  resolved  that  these  men  should  be  put  to 
death. 

Now  came  on  the  trial ;  and  here  again,  as  in 
every  part  of  the  allegory,  Bunyan's  own  expe- 
rience served  him  in  good  stead  ;  here  again  he 
draws  his  picture  from  real  life,  from  his  own  life. 
Little  could  he  have  thought,  when  a  few  years  ago 
amidst  the  taunts  of  his  enemies,  he  himself  stood  at 
the  bar  to  be  examined  for  the  crime  of  preaching 
the  gospel,  that  the  providence  of  God  was  then 
laying  up  in  store  materials  of  human  life  and 
character  to  be  used  with  such  powerful  effect  in 
his  then  unconceived,  unimagined  allegory.  These 
phases  of  a  world  at  enmity  against  God  were 


368  CHRISTIAN    AND    FAITHFUL 

indelibly  impressed  on  Banyan's  mind,  and  now, 
in  all  the  freshness  of  their  coloring,  he  trans- 
ferred them  to  the  tablets  of  the  Pilgrim's  Pro- 
gress. 

Nothing  can  be  more  masterly  than  the  satire 
contained  in  this  trial.  The  Judge,  the  Witnesses, 
and  the  Jury,  are  portraits  sketched  to  the  life,  and 
finished,  every  one  of  them,  in  quick,  concise,  and 
graphic  touches.  The  ready  testimony  of  Envy  is 
especially  characteristic.  Rather  than  any  thing 
should  be  wanting  that  might  be  necessary  to 
dispatch  the  prisoner,  he  would  enlarge  his  testi- 
mony against  him  to  any  requisite  degree.  The 
language  of  the  Judge,  and  his  whole  deportment 
on  the  bench,  are  a  copy  to  the  life  of  some  of  the 
infamous  judges  under  King  Charles,  especially 
the  wretch  Jeffries.  You  may  find  in  the  trial  of 
the  noble  patriot  Algernon  Sidney  the  abusive  lan- 
guage of  the  Judge  against  Faithful  almost  word 
for  word.  The  Judge's  charge  to  the  Jury,  with  the 
acts  and  laws  on  which  the  condemnation  of  the 
prisoner  was  founded,  are  full  of  ingenuity  and 
meaning. 

But  the  best  part  of  the  trial  is  the  heroic  cour- 
ageous deportment  of  Faithful.  His  answer  to  the 
charges  and  the  witnesses  against  him,  reminds  us 
of  Bunyan's  answers  to  the  arguments  of  his  accu- 
sers. "As  to  the  charge  of  Mr.  Superstition  against 
me,  I  said  only  this,  that  in  the  worship  of  God 
there  is  required  a  divine  faith  ;  but  there  can  be 
no  divine  faith,  without  a  divine  revelation  of  the 
will  of  God.  Therefore,  whatever  is  thrust  into  the 
worship  of  God  that  is  not  agreeable  to  divine  re- 


IN    VANITY    FAIR.  369 

relation,  cannot  be  done  but  by  a  human  faith  ; 
which  faith  will  not  be  profitable  to  eternal  life.  As 
to  what  Mr.  Pickthank  hath  said,  I  say,  (avoiding 
terms,  as  that  I  am  said  to  rail,  and  the  like,)  that 
the  Prince  of  this  town,  with  all  the  rabblement 
his  attendants,  by  this  gentleman  named,  are  more 
fit  for  being  in  Hell  than  in  this  town  or  country; 
and  so  the  Lord  have  mercy  upon  me. 

Well  done,  noble,  resolute,  fearless  Faithful ! 
No  doubt  of  death  after  such  truth  shot  into  the 
hearts  of  thine  enemies  !  Then  was  Faithful,  after 
dreadful  torments  inflicted  on  him,  burned  to  ashes 
at  the  stake,  in  the  midst  of  the  multitude.  But 
behind  the  multitude  there  was  a  ravishing  sight 
for  any  man  whose  eyes  could  have  been  opened 
to  behold  it,  and  which  might  have  made  any  man 
willing  to  take  Faithful's  place  at  the  stake  for  the 
sake  of  Faithful's  place  in  glory  afterwards.  For 
there  was  a  band  of  bright  shining  angels  waiting 
for  Faithful  with  a  chariot  and  horses,  in  which, 
while  the  flames  were  yet  crackling  in  the  faggots 
which  consumed  his  flesh  to  ashes,  he  was  con- 
veyed with  the  sound  of  trumpets  up  through  the 
clouds  to  the  Celestial  City.  This  sight  was 
enough  to  make  Christian  wish  that  instead  of 
taking  him  back  to  prison,  they  had  burned  him 
also  on  the  spot. 

Now  this  is  a  most  exquisitely  beautiful  sketch  ; 
it  is  drawn  to  the  lite  from  many  an  era  of  pilgrim- 
age in  this  world;  there  are  in  it  the  materials 
of  glory  that  constituted  spirits  of  such  noble 
greatness  as  are  catalogued  in  the  eleventh 
chapter  of  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews ;  trials 


370  CHRISTIAN   AND    FAITHFUL 

of  cruel  mockings  and  scourgings,  bonds  and 
imprisonments,  such  as  tortured  and  hardened  the 
frames  of  men  of  whom  the  world  was  not  worthy. 
Such  was  the  stuff  and  discipline  out  of  which  the 
race  of  primitive  Christians  were  moulded ;  and 
very  much  such  was  also  the  era  of  pilgrimage  on 
which  Bunyan  himself  had  fallen.  But  is  it  an 
equally  true  sketch  of  the  pilgrimage  in  our  day  1 
Is  the  world  now  regarded  so  much  a  wilderness 
and  a  world  of  enmity  against  God  as  it  was  ?  Cer- 
tainly the  pilgrims  are  now  regarded  with  more 
favor.  Is  this  because  the  world  has  grown  kinder, 
better,  more  disposed  towards  godliness,  or  is  it 
because  the  Pilgrims  have  grown  less  strict  in  their 
manners,  less  peculiar  in  their  language,  and  more 
accommodating  and  complying  with  the  usages  of 
Vanity  Fair?  Or  is  it  from  both  these  causes  to- 
gether, that  the  path  of  the  pilgrimage  seems  so 
much  easier  now  than  it  was  formerly  ? 

It  is  true  that  the  more  Christians  there  are  in 
the  world,  the  more  delightful  will  this  pilgrimage 
become,  the  fewer  external  enemies  and  difficulties 
will  there  be  to  be  fought  and  conquered.  There 
might  be  such  a  revival  of  religion  in  Vanity  Fair 
itself,  as  should  convert  all  its  inhabitants,  so  that 
even  my  Lord  Hategood  would  have  to  lay  aside 
his  name  with  his  nature,  and  Malice  and  Envy 
would  be  changed  into  Love.  Then  would  the 
lion  lie  down  with  the  lamb,  and  the  leopard  would 
eat  straw  like  the  ox,  and  a  little  child  might  pass 
in  white  robes  through  Vanity  Fair  unhurt,  un- 
Boiled.  Then  would  the  merchandise  of  the 
Fair  be  changed,  and  no  longer  would  the  answer 


IN    VANITY    FAIR.  371 

of  the  Pilgrims,  We  buy  the  truth,  be  deemed  such 
a  strange  and  barbarous  answer ;  but  godliness 
would  be  considered  as  gain,  and  not  gain  as  godli- 
ness. That  the  world  is  coming  into  such  a 
grand  climacteric  of  innocence,  happiness  and 
glory,  there  is  no  doubt,  just  in  proportion  as  the 
gospel  prevails,  and  the  number  of  real  believers  is 
multiplied. 

There  is,  however,   an  era   of  nominal   Chris- 
tianity.    Vanity  Fair  itself  may  be  full  of  professed 
pilgrims,  and  the  pilgrimage  itself  may  be  held  in 
high  esteem,  and  yet  the  practice  of  the  pilgrimage, 
as  Christian  and  Faithful  followed  it,  may  almost 
have  gone  out  of  existence.     With  the  increase 
of  nominal  Christians  there  is  always  an  increase 
of  conformity  to  the  world  ;  and  the  world  appears 
better  than    it    did    to    Christians,   not   so   much 
because   it  has  changed,   as    because    they   have 
changed  ;  the  wild  beasts  and  the  tame  ones  dwell 
together,  not  so  much  because    the  leopards   eat 
straw  like  the  ox,  as  because  the  ox   eats  flesh 
like  the  leopard.     Ephraim,  he  hath  mixed  him- 
self among  the  people  ;  the  people  have  not  come 
over  to  Ephraim,  but  Ephraim   has  gone  over  to 
them  ;  the  people  hath  not  learned  the  ways  of 
Ephraim,  but  Ephraim  hath  learned  the  manners 
of  the  people.     This  is  too  much  the  case  in  the 
Vanity  Fair  of  the   world  at    the  present  time ; 
there  is  not  such  a  marked  and  manifest  distinction 
between  the  church  and  the  world  as  there  should 
be ;     their    habits,     maxims,    opinions,    pursuits, 
amusements,  whole  manner  of  life,  are  too  much 
the  same  ;    so  that  the  Pilgrims  in  our  day  have 
48 


372  CHRISTIAN    AND    FAITHFUL 

lost  the  character  of  a  peculiar  people,  not  so  much 
because  they  have  become  vastly  more  numerous 
than  formerly,  as  because  they  have  become  con- 
formed to  the  world,  not  like  strangers,  but  natives 
in  Vanity  Fair.  The  great  temptations  of  the 
church  in  our  day  is  that  of  entire,  almost  un- 
mingled  worldliness  ;  formalism  and  worldliness 
are  too  sadly  the  types  of  our  piety  ;  we  are  in 
imminent  danger  of  forgetting  that  our  life  is  a  pil- 
grimage, and  that  this  is  not  our  rest. 

This  being  the  case,  what  shall  we  say  of  this 
sketch  of  Vanity  Fair,  and  of  the  treatment  of  the 
Pilgrims  in  it,  as  applied  to  ourselves,  to  the  Vanity 
Fair  of  our  own  era  in  the  world,  and  of  the  society 
around  us  1  Do  the  Pilgrims  of  our  day  go  as 
resolutely  through  Vanity  Fair  as  Christian  and 
Faithful  did  ?  Is  it  true  that  in  simplicity  and 
godly  sincerity^  not  with  fleshly  lusts,  we,  as  they 
did,  have  our  conversation  in  the  world  1  Is  our 
merchandise  the  truth,  or  do  we,  as  they  did  not, 
stop  to  trade  in  Vanity  Fair,  cheapening  its  com- 
modities 1  And  how  many  among  us  make  Va- 
nity Fair  the  end  of  their  pilgrimage  1 

Let  the  Dreamer  lie  down,  and  dream  again  in 
the  wilderness  of  this  world,  and  surely  a  great 
change  would  come  over  the  spirit  of  his  dream, 
and  the  coloring  also.  Or  let  a  man  stand  by  the 
Dreamer,  and  recount  to  him  what  has  happened 
since  he  passed  this  way  before,  what  changes  in 
the  progress  of  two  hundred  years.  Listen  to 
him,  if  you  please,  as  he  speaks  of  Vanity  Fair  in 
your  day.  His  account  is  somewhat  as  follows  : 

The  town  was  much  altered  since  Christian  and 


IN    VANITY    FAIR.  373 

Faithful  passed  through  it,  and  principally  for 
the  reason  that  a  great  multitude  of  Pilgrims 
who  had  set  out  on  the  pilgrimage  had  con- 
cluded, finding  the  air  of  the  city  much  improved, 
and  that  by  reason  of  the  increase  of  refinement 
and  knowledge  among  the  inhabitants,  the  city 
itself  was  very  profitable  and  pleasant  to  dwell 
in,  to  remain  there  for  an  indefinite  season,  and 
many  of  them  for  the  residue  of  their  lives.  This 
began  by  some  of  them  being  allured  to  take  part 
in  the  purchase  and  sale  of  the  merchandise  of  the 
place,  till  at  length  a  great  part  of  the  business 
came  to  be  transacted  by  those  who  at  first 
came  to  the  place  in  the  character  of  strangers 
and  travellers  to  the  Celestial  City.  They  formed 
partnership  with  the  natives  and  original  owners 
of  Vanity  Fair,  so  that  now  no  small  part  of  the 
French  Row,  the  German  Row,  and  especially 
the  English  Row  was  carried  on  under  the  pro- 
fession of  those  who  had  thus  settled  in  the  place 
as  Pilgrims. 

In  process  of  time  they  had  also  appointed  as 
Lord  Mayor  of  the  place  a  professor  of  the  reli- 
gion of  the  Pilgrims,  My  Lord  Know-the- World, 
whose  grand  entertainments  and  dinners,  together 
with  his  courtly  and  affable  manners,  did  much  to 
render  the  name  of  the  Pilgrims  respectable,  and  to 
put  the  whole  place  on  good  terms  with  them. 
Nay,  it  was  a  pleasant  thing  to  the  citizens, 
that  they  could  have  so  many  of  the  Pilgrims  to 
stay  with  them,  still  preserving  the  profession  of 
their  pilgrimage  ;  insomuch  that  at  length  it  be- 
came fashionable  among  many  of  the  native  inha- 


374  CHRISTIAN    AND    FAITHFUL 

bitants  of  the  city  to  take  the  same  name  and  pro- 
fession without  having  ever  once  set  out  on  their 
travels  towards  the  Celestial  City.  And  I  ob- 
served that  what  aided  this  greatly  was  a  certain 
thing  that  had  got  in  vogue,  which  I  was  told 
was  considered  by  many  as  involving  the  whole 
essence  of  the  pilgrimage,  and  securing  all  its 
benefits  without  the  necessity  of  encountering  its 
perils  or  labors,  and  which  they  called  baptismal 
regeneration.  There  was  also  in  the  court  end  of 
the  town  a  very  large  cathedral,  builded  of  hewn 
stone,  on  which  they  had  sculptured  the  image  of 
the  twelve  apostles,  and  over  the  gate  of  it  had 
engraven  in  large  capitals  these  words,  No  church 
without  a  bishop.  I  was  told  that  it  was  in  this 
building  chiefly  that  the  ceremony  which  they 
called  baptismal  regeneration  was  performed  ;  and 
it  was  observable  that  most  of  those  who  en- 
tered this  building  and  underwent  the  ceremonies 
there  enacted,  considered  themselves  safe  for  the 
Celestial  City,  although  they  had  not  Christian's 
roll,  and  never  went  a  step  beyond  Vanity  Fair. 

There  was  also  no  small  part  of  the  court  end 
of  the  city  where  the  houses  had  crosses  upon 
them  ;  which  I  was  told  would  prevent  the  growth 
of  any  such  burden  on  the  shoulders,  as  Christian 
had  borne  with  so  much  difficulty.  There  were 
also  in  various  parts  of  the  city  places  of  worship 
erected,  called  Chapels  of  Ease,  where  the  music 
was  so  fine,  and  the  seats  were  so  softly  and 
beautifully  prepared,  and  all  the  ceremonies 
were  so  pleasant,  that  most  of  the  inhabitants 
became  church  going  people.  In  some  of  these 


IN    VANITY    FAIR.  375 

places  I  was  told  that  great  care  was  taken  to 
smooth  down  the  rough  places  in  the  gospel,  and 
that  no  alarms  were  ever  suffered  to  be  given  to 
the  consciences  of  the  people  who  came  there, 
and  also  that  all  those  fiends,  by  which  Christian 
had  been  so  much  vexed  and  alarmed,  were  con- 
sidered as  only  imaginary  beings,  even  Apollyon 
himself,  and  that  the  hell  which  had  frightened  so 
many  Pilgrims  was  regarded  as  a  mere  creation 
of  the  fancy. 

Moreover,  Mr.  Legality,  from  the  town  of  Carnal 
Policy,  had  established  a  colony  in  this  place,  and, 
by  the  aid  of  Mr.  Worldly  Wiseman,  had  gained  no 
small  number  of  the  Pilgrims,  who  had  concluded 
to  settle  in  Vanity  Fair.  I  also  observed  that  the 
Pilgrims  had  thrived  greatly  in  their  business, 
and  that  their  houses  were  among  the  most  taste- 
ful and  costly  buildings  in  the  better  parts  of  the 
city.  When  they  first  began  to  stop  in  Vanity 
Fair,  they  were  of  very  small  means,  and  of  an 
humble  exterior ;  but  by  degrees  they  acquired 
property,  and  moved  up  into  the  more  airy  and 
fashionable  parts  of  the  place,  where  they  thought 
it  important  to  make  the  name  and  profession  of 
Pilgrim  respectable  in  the  eyes  of  the  inhabitants. 
Some  of  them  had  great  share  in  the  various  stocks 
in  Vanity  Fair,  and  were  appointed  directors  and 
presidents  of  its  banks,  and  had  built  themselves 
fine  houses,  and  kept  up  large  establishments,  such 
as  formerly  none  but  the  native  men  of  Vanity  Fair 
could  build  or  reside  in. 

There  was  one  Mr.  Genteel,  who  at  first  came 
into  the  place  very  dusty  and  poor  from  his  pil- 


376  CHRISTIAN   AND    FAITHFUL 

grimage,  (his  name  then  being  Rustic,)  and  had 
resolved  only  to  remain  long  enough  in  Vanity 
Fair  to  better  his  circumstances  a  little,  and  then 
to  set  out  again,  but  who  had  such  a  tide  of  worldly 
prosperity  upon  him,  that  he  became  very  rich,  put 
up  one  of  the  finest  houses  in  the  place,  changed 
his  name,  and  concluded  to  remain  there  indefi- 
nitely. There  was  another  man,  Mr.  Worldly- 
Conformity,  who  followed  this  rich  Pilgrim's 
example,  and  they  two,  together  with  some 
others  in  the  same  neighborhood,  as  Mr.  Luke- 
Warm,  Mr.  Yielding,  Mr.  Indifferent,  Mr.  Expedi- 
ent, and  their  families,  constituted  some  of  the 
most  fashionable  society  in  the  region.  They 
were  not  outdone  by  any  of  the  merchants  or  pro- 
fessional gentlemen  or  nobility  of  Vanity  Fair  in 
the  costliness  of  their  entertainments,  and  the  rich- 
ness of  their  style  of  living. 

It  is  true  that  in  some  cases  these  professed 
Pilgrims  were  found  to  have  gone  beyond  their 
means,  and  to  have  built  houses  and  supported 
this  expensive  mode  of  life  at  the  expense  of 
other  people;  but  this  did  not  prevent  others 
from  similar  extravagance ;  and  at  length  the 
world's  people,  as  the  original  inhabitants  at  Va- 
nity Fair  were  called,  and  the  population  of  the 
Pilgrims,  could  not  at  all  be  distinguished,  the  Pil- 
grims having  ceased  to  be  a  peculiar  people,  and 
engaging  in  the  the  same  amusements  and  pursuits 
as  were  generally  deemed  reputable.  The  Pil- 
grims being  so  prosperous  and  well-esteemed,  you 
may  readily  suppose  there  were  very  few  new 
comers  but  were  persuaded  to  settle  down  in  the 


IN   VANITY   FAIR.  377 

same  way,  very  few  indeed,  who,  like  Christian 
and  Faithful,  of  old,  went  strait  through  Vanity 
Fair,  and  would  not  be  turned  aside  from  their  pil- 
grimage. Some  who  staid  in  the  town  retained  the 
recollection  of  their  pilgrim  life  a  longer  and  some  a 
shorter  time  than  others,  and  some  would  be  ever 
and  anon  preparing  to  set  out  again  ;  but  there 
were  certain  persons  of  influence  in  the  place,  as 
Mr.  Self-indulgence,  Mr.  Love-of-Ease,  Mr.  Crea- 
ture-Comfort, Mr.  Indolence,  my  Lord  Procrasti- 
nate, and  my  Lord  Time-Serving,  who,  with  fair 
speeches,  did  generally  contrive  to  detain  them, 
even  to  the  day  of  their  death.  So  that  it  was 
rare  that  any  of  those,  who  stopped  and  became 
entangled  in  the  cares  and  pleasures  of  life  and 
business  in  Vanity  Fair,  ever  again  set  out  on  pil- 
grimage. I  have  heard,  however,  that  many  of 
them,  when  they  came  to  die,  were  found  in  great 
gloom  and  distress,  and  could  get  no  peace  what- 
ever, crying  out  continually,  O  that  I  had  never 
ceased  to  be  a  Pilgrim. 

There  were  some  that  had  very  grand  country 
seats,  and  spent  their  time  in  farming  and  gar- 
dening in  the  summer,  and  were  very  busy  at  the 
Fair  in  large  business  operations  in  the  winter. 
Some  of  these  men  were  accustomed  to  give  con- 
siderable sums  to  certain  benevolent  societies  that 
were  in  the  place,  and  also  they  would,  as  occasion 
offered,  preside  at  their  meetings,  and  give  them 
countenance  by  their  names.  Nor  was  there  any 
want  of  such  societies  now  in  Vanity  Fair,  for 
many  persons  seemed  to  think  that  the  patronizing 
of  such  societies  rendered  it  unnecessary  for  them- 


378  CHRISTIAN   AND    FAITHFUL 

selves  to  go  .on  pilgrimage.  There  were  also  many 
good  books  published  in  the  place,  and  what 
seemed  not  a  little  surprising,  the  lives  of  some 
of  the  most  noted  Pilgrims  who  had  passed 
through  Vanity  Fair  were  put  forth,  and  were 
greatly  admired  even  by  some  of  those  who  had 
settled  in  Vanity  Fair  because  of  its  merchandise. 
There  were  also  persons  who  might  be  heard  to 
speak  much  of  the  necessity  of  living  as  strangers 
and  pilgrims  in  the  world,  who,  nevertheless,  kept 
immense  warehouses  in  English  Row  and  French 
Row,  and  were  very  busy  in  increasing  their  es- 
tates and  beautifying  their  establishments. 

From  all  these  things  you  may  conclude  that 
whereas  in  Christian  and  Faithful's  time  the  very 
name  of  a  Pilgrim  was  enough  to  bring  odium 
and  disgrace,  if  not  persecution,  upon  the  men 
who  entered  the  town  in  that  character,  it  was 
now  considered  a  very  reputable  thing ;  some  of 
the  very  best  society  in  Vanity  Fair  holding  it  in 
such  esteem  that  the  persecution  of  Faithful  was 
now  thought  to  be  the  greatest  disgrace  that  had 
ever  befallen  the  inhabitants.  The  Cage,  in 
which  the  Pilgrims  were  once  confined  as  mad- 
men, was  now  never  used,  and  some  said  that  it 
had  been  broken  in  pieces,  but  others  said  that 
it  had  been  consecrated  for  church  purposes, 
and  put  under  the  Cathedral,  in  a  deep  cell, 
from  which  it  might  again  be  brought  forth,  if 
occasion  required  it.  The  old  Lord  of  the  Fair 
also,  seeing  how  things  were  going  on,  now  very 
seldom  came  thither  in  person,  and  was  well  con- 
tent, it  is  said,  to  have  the  people  appoint  for  their 


IN   VANITY    FAIR.  379 

mayors  and  judges  persons  who  had  either  been 
Pilgrims  themselves  or  greatly  favored  that  part  of 
the  population. 

There  was  another  very  singular  thing,  that 
had  happened  in  process  of  time  ;  for  a  part  of 
the  Pilgrims  who  remained  in  Vanity  Fair  began 
to  visit  the  Cave  of  Giant  Pope,  which,  you 
remember,  lay  at  no  great  distance  from  the  town, 
so,  instead  of  going  farther  towards  the  Celestial 
City,  there  became  fashionable  a  sort  of  pilgrimage 
to  that  Cave.  They  brushed  up  the  Giant,  and 
gave  him  medicines  to  alleviate  the  hurts  from 
those  bruises  which  he  had  received  in  his  youth  ; 
and  to  make  the  place  pleasanter,  they  carefully 
cleared  away  the  remains  of  the  bones  and  skulls 
of  burned  Pilgrims,  and  planted  a  large  enclo- 
sure with  flowers  and  evergreens. 

When  this  was  done,  they  even  denied  that  there 
had  ever  been  any  such  cruelties  practised,  as  were 
demonstrated  by  the  bones,  when  Christian  and 
Faithful  passed  by.  The  Cave  also  they  adorned, 
and  let  in  just  so  much  light  upon  it,  as  made 
it  appear  romantic  and  sacred,  so  that  some  Pil- 
grims, who  came  at  first  only  to  see  the  ceremonies, 
were  so  much  attracted  by  them  as  to  join  in  them. 

What  greatly  aided  to  render  this  pilgrimage 
fashionable,  was  a  large  saloon  erected  about  half- 
way between  Vanity  Fair  and  the  Cave,  where 
much  good  society  from  Vanity  Fair  were  accus- 
tomed to  stop  for  refreshment  and  social  converse, 
where  also  they  had  little  hermitages  and  altars, 
and  a  certain  intoxicating  refreshment,  called, 
Tracts  for  the  Times,  the  effect  of  which  was 
49 


380  CHRISTIAN    AND    FAITHFUL 

to  make  them  feel,  while  pursuing  their  way  to 
the  Cave,  as  if  they  were  stepping  towards  heaven. 
It  was  said  also  that  there  was  an  underground 
passage  all  the  way  between  this  Cave  and  the 
Cathedral,  of  which  I  have  spoken,  in  Vanity  Fair, 
where  the  twelve  apostles  were  sculptured  in  stone, 
and  the  Cage  was  secreted  ;  but  this  passage  I 
never  examined. 

Is  this  a  true  or  false  report  of  some  among  many 
things  that  might  be  named  in  the  state  of  society, 
and  the  reputation  of  the  Christian  pilgrimage 
now,  in  Vanity  Fair  ?  We  will  leave  Conscience  to 
answer  this  question,  and  pass  on  to  the  very  in- 
structive and  exquisitely  satirical  sketches  of  cha- 
racter introduced  by  Bunyan,  after  Hopeful,  rising 
out  of  Faithful's  ashes,  had  joined  Christian  in  the 
way.  The  martyrdom  of  Faithful  had  kindled  a 
light  in  Vanity  Fair  that  would  not  easily  be  put 
out,  and  many  there  were  that  by  his  example 
would  themselves,  as  Hopeful  did,  become  Pil- 
grims. So,  by  the  death  of  one  to  bear  testimony 
to  the  truth,  many  were  affected  by  that  testimony, 
whose  hearts  might  otherwise  have  remained  hard- 
ened to  the  end  of  life.  Fox's  Book  of  Martyrs, 
with  the  story  of  Latimer  and  Ridley,  it  must  be 
remembered,  was  one  of  three  books  that  consti- 
tuted Bunyan's  Prison  Library. 

There  now  pass  before  us  in  the  Pilgrim's  Pro- 
gress a  series  of  characters  sketched  with  inimita- 
ble power  and  beauty,  of  whom  Mr.  By-ends  is  the 
most  remarkable,  standing  for  a'  class  of  men  of  no 
small  number  and  influence.  He  got  his  estate  by 
looking  one  way  and  rowing  another,  and  he  and 


IN    VANITY    FAIR.  381 

his  family,  friends  and  relations,  differed  from  the 
stricter  sort  in  religion  only  in  two  small  points ; 
first,  never  striving  against  wind  and  water,  and 
second,  being  always  for  Religion  in  his  silver  slip- 
pers, loving  much  to  walk  with  him  in  the  streets, 
of  a  sunshiny  day,  when  the  people  applauded. 
It  is  very  clear  that  there  could  be  little  or  no  com- 
munion between  this  man  and  Christian  and  Hope- 
ful ;  for  By-ends  would  hold  to  his  own  principles, 
they  being,  as  he  said,  harmless  and  profitable, 
whereas  the  principles  of  Christian  and  Hopeful 
were  in  his  view  unnecessarily  strict  and  rigid, 
compelling  them  to  walk  with  Religion  in  rags  and 
contempt,  as  well  as  in  sunshine  and  silver  slippers. 
When  therefore  they  had  met  and  conversed  a  little 
they  soon  separated,  and  speedily  after  Christian 
had  asked  Mr.  By-ends  what  was  his  name. 

But  now  By-ends  meets  a  trio  of  more  conge- 
nial companions,  Mr.  Hold-the- World,  Mr.  Money- 
Love,  and  Mr.  Save-all,  the  whole  of  them  having 
formerly  been  schoolmates  under  Mr.  Gripe-man, 
in  the  town  of  Love-Gain.  Their  schoolmaster  had 
taught  them,  among  other  things,  the  art  of  gaining 
by  putting  on  the  guise  of  Religion ;  and  Bunyan 
seems  to  have  designated  in  these  men  the  charac- 
ters of  base,  arrant  cheats  and  hypocrites.  Their 
conversation  with  one  another  is  a  most  amusing 
piece  of  satire,  developing  the  sheer  worldliness 
and  selfishness  of  their  principles,  and  the  argu- 
ments by  which  such  men  justify  the  service  of  God 
and  Mammon.  The  speech  of  Mr.  Hold-the- World 
is  admirably  characteristic,  and  for  its  string  of 
earthly  proverbs,  with  the  selfish  sagacity  of  which 


382  CHRISTIAN    AND    FAITHFUL 

they  are  all  the  exponent,  it  rivals  all  the  delinea- 
tions of  Sancho  Panza,  by  Cervantes.  Hold-the- 
World  is  indeed  the  very  essence  and  personifica- 
tion of  low  worldly  wisdom,  and  what  is  worse,  he 
carries  it  all  under  the  guise  of  piety ;  in  this,  it  is 
to  be  feared,  constituting  an  example  of  the  real 
character  of  many  who  would  not  be  willing  to 
acknowledge  such  principles,  either  to  themselves 
or  others. 

"  For  my  own  part,"  said  he,  "  I  can  count  him 
but  a  fool,  who,  having  the  liberty  to  keep  what  he 
has,  shall  be  so  unwise  as  to  lose  it.  Let  us  be 
wise  as  serpents;  it  is  best  to  make  hay  while 
the  sun  shines :  you  see  how  the  bee  lieth  still  in 
winter,  and  bestirs  her  only  when  she  can  have 
profit  with  pleasure.  God  sends  sometimes  rain 
and  sometimes  sunshine  :  if  they  be  such  fools  to 
go  through  the  first,  yet  let  us  be  content  to  take 
fair  weather  along  with  us.  For  my  part,  I  like  that 
religion  best  that  will  stand  with  the  security  of 
God's  good  blessings  unto  us  ;  for  who  can  imagine, 
that  is  ruled  by  his  reason,  since  God  has  bestowed 
upon  us  the  good  things  of  this  life,  but  that  he 
would  have  us  keep  them  for  his  sake  1  Abraham 
and  Solomon  grew  rich  in  religion  ;  and  Job  says 
that  "a  good  man  shall  lay  up  gold  as  dust."  But 
he  must  not  be  such  as  Christian  and  Hopeful, 
added  Hold-the- World,  if  they  be  such  rigid  sim- 
pletons as  you  have  described  them. 

Then  By-ends  proposed  this  question ;  suppose 
a  man,  a  minister  or  a  tradesman,  &c.,  should  have 
an  advantage  lie  before  him  to  get  the  good  bles- 
sings of  this  life,  yet  so  as  that  he  can  by  no  means 


IN  VANITY  FAIR. 

come  by  them,  except,  in  appearance  at  least,  he 
becomes  extraordinary  zealous  in  some  points  of 
religion  that  he  meddled  not  with  before  ;  may  he 
not  use  this  means  to  obtain  this  end,  and  yet  be  a 
right  honest  man  ? 

Mr.  Money-Love  undertook  to  answer  this  ques- 
tion, and  the  crooked  policy  of  his  conclusions 
jumped  well,  you  may  be  sure,  with  the  minds  of 
his  companions,  first  concerning  ministers,  second 
concerning  tradesmen.  Dr.  Paley  would  have 
done  well  to  have  read  over  this  chapter  in  Bun- 
yan  before  composing  some  of  the  chapters  in  his 
Moral  Philosophy,  and  his  sermon  on  the  Utility 
of  Distinctions  in  the  Ministry.  The  philosophy 
of  Money-Love  and  By-ends  is  that  which  the 
god  of  this  world  teaches  all  his  votaries,  and,  alas, 
when  motives  come  to  be  scrutinized,  as  they  will 
be,  at  the  bar  of  God,  how  much  of  our  apparent 
good  will  be  found  to  be  evil,  because  in  the  root 
that  nourished  both  the  branches  and  the  fruit, 
there  was  found  to  be  nothing  but  self-interest 
carefully  concealed.  Ye  seek  me,  not  because  of 
the  miracles  to  be  witnessed,  or  the  grace  to  be 
gained,  but  because  ye  did  eat  of  the  loaves,  and 
were  filled. 

"  Suppose  a  minister,"  said  Mr.  Money-Love,  "a 
very  worthy  man,  possessed  but  of  a  very  small 
benefice,  and  has  in  his  eye  a  greater,  more  plump 
and  fat  by  far  :  he  has  also  now  an  opportunity  of 
getting  it,  yet,  so  as  by  being  more  studious,  by 
preaching  more  frequent  and  zealously,  and  because 
the  temper  of  the  people  requires  it,  by  altering  of 
some  of  his  principles :  for  my  part,  I  see  no  reason 


384  CHRISTIAN    AND    FAITHFUL 

why  a  man  may  not  do  this,  provided  he  has  a  call, 
yea,  and  more  a  great  deal  besides,  and  yet  be  an 
honest  man.  For  why  ? 

1.  His  desire  of  a  greater  benefice  is  lawful ; 
this  cannot  be  contradicted,  since  it  is  set  before 
him  by  Providence ;    so  then  he    may  get   it    if 
he  can,  making  no  question  for  conscience'  sake. 

2.  Because  his  desire  after  that  benefice  makes 
him  more  studious,  a  more  zealous  preacher,  &c., 
and  so  makes  him  a  better  man,  yea,  makes  him 
better  improve  his  parts  ;    which  is  according   to 
the  mind  of  God. 

3.  Now,  as  to  his  complying  with  the  temper  of 
his  people,  by  deserting,  to  serve  them,  some  of  his 
principles,  this  argueth  :  (1.)   that  he  is  of  a  self- 
denying  temper ;    (2.)    of  a   sweet  and  winning 
deportment ;  and  (3.)  so  more  fit  for  the  minis- 
terial function. 

I  conclude,  then,  that  a  minister  who  changes  a 
small  for  a  great,  should  not,  for  so  doing,  be 
judged  as  covetous  ;  but  rather,  since  he  is  im- 
proved in  his  parts  and  industry  thereby,  be  counted 
as  one  that  pursues  his  call,  and  the  opportunity 
put  into  his  hands  to  do  good. 

And  now  to  the  second  part  of  the  question, 
which  concerns  the  tradesman  you  mentioned; 
suppose  such  an  one  to  have  but  a  poor  employ 
in  the  world,  but  by  becoming  religious  he  may 
mend  his  market,  perhaps  get  a  rich  wife,  or  more 
and  far  better  customers  to  his  shop  ;  for  my  part, 
I  see  no  reason  but  this  may  be  lawfully  done  ;  for 
why? 


IN   VANITY   FAIR.  885 

1.  To  become  religious    is  a  virtue,  by  what 
means  soever  a  man  becomes  so. 

2.  Nor  is  it  unlawful  to  get  a  rich  wife,  or  better 
customers  to  my  shop. 

3.  Besides,  the  man  that  gets  these  by  becoming 
religious,  gets  that  which  is  good,  of  them  that  are 
good,  by  becoming  good  himself;  so  then,  here  is 
a  good  wife,  and  good  customers,  and  good  gain, 
and  all  this  by  becoming  religious,  which  is  good  ; 
therefore,  to  become  religious,  to  get  all  these,  is  a 
good  and  profitable  design." 

Now  is  not  this  logic  of  Money-Love  very  bare- 
faced ?  And  yet  these  men  considered  it  perfectly 
triumphant,  and  an  argument  that  Christian  and 
Hopeful  could  not  possibly  contradict.  Whereupon 
they  resolved  to  propound  the  same  question  to 
them,  and  so  puzzle  and  defeat  them.  But  to  their 
astonishment,  Christian  declared  at  once  that  none 
others  than  heathens,  hypocrites,  devils,  and 
witches  could  be  of  their  opinion,  and  then  he 
went  on  to  prove  this  so  clearly  and  powerfully 
out  of  Scripture,  with  instances  in  point,  that  the 
men  were  completely  staggered,  and  stood  staring 
one  upon  another,  unable  to  answer  a  word.  What, 
said  Christian  to  Hopeful,  will  these  men  do  with 
the  sentence  of  God,  if  they  cannot  stand  before  the 
sentence  of  men  ? 

This  passage  in  the  pilgrimage  is  full  of  instruc- 
tion, and  we  might  dwell  long  upon  it,  and  upon 
the  danger  of  evil  motives  under  the  guise  of  a 
good  cause,  or  of  unholy  motives  in  a  holy  cause. 
The  motive  is  every  thing ;  it  makes  the  man.  An 
eye  single  makes  a  single-minded  man:  an  eye 


386  CHRISTIAN   AND    FAITHFUL 

double   makes   a  double-minded   man.      An   eye 
single    is  good  in  whatever  a  man   undertakes, 
considered  even  merely  in  reference  to  the  things 
of  this  life,  and  as  requisite  to  decision  of  character. 
In  this  view  the  children  of  this  world  are  wiser  in 
their  generation  than  the  children  of  light ;  what 
they  do  for  this  world  they  do  with  energy  and 
whole-heartedness,  which  is  just  what,  as  Pilgrims, 
we  want  for  Christ.    We  want,  in  all  things,  an  eye 
single  for  God,  for  his  approbation,  for  his  glory, 
and  this  is  the  precious  motive  that  excludes  every 
other,  or  keeps  every  other  subordinate,  and  turns 
every  thing  to  gold.     "  Whatsoever  ye  do,  do  it 
heartily,  as  to  the  Lord,  and  not  as  unto  men." 
The  very  drudgery  and  toilsomness  of  our  pil- 
grimage is  turned  into  a  divine  and  holy  service, 
by  this  precious  singleness  of  heart  for   Christ ! 
Oh  how  desirable  is  this  in  every  thing  !    This  is  the 
body  of  that  beautiful   composition   by   Herbert, 
which  is  perhaps  the  best  series  of  stanzas  he  ever 
wrote,  entitled,  The  Elixir.     It  is  good  to  drink  this 
on  our  pilgrimage,  especially  after  such  a  conversa- 
tion with  By-ends  and  Money-Love.     By  ends  are 
almost  always  bad  ends,  but  love  to  Christ,  sin- 
gleness of  heart  for  Christ,  sets  them  at  a  distance, 
and  shows  them  at  once  in  their  native  hypocrisy 
and  deformity. 

Teach  me,  my  God  and  King, 

In  ail  things  Thee  to  see, 
And  what  I  do  in  any  thing, 

To  do  it  as  for  thee. 

Not  rudely,  as  a  beast, 

To  run  into  an  action ; 
But  still  to  make  Thee  preposaest, 

And  give  it  Thy  perfection. 


IN   VANITY   FAIR.  88? 

A  man  that  looks  on  glass 

On  it  may  stay  his  eye ; 
And  if  he  pleaseth,  through  it  pass, 

And  then  the  heaven  espy. 

All  may  of  Thee  partake ; 

Nothing  can  be  so  mean, 
Which  with  this  tincture  for  thy  sake, 

Will  not  grow  bright  and  clean. 

A  servant  with  this  clause, 

Makes  drudgery  divine : 
Who  sweeps  a  room  as  for  thy  laws, 

Makes  that  and  the  action  fine. 

This  is  the  famous  stone, 

That  tumeth  all  to  gold ; 
For  that  which  God  doth  touch  and  own 

Cannot  for  less  be  told. 


Now  we  must  go  on  with  our  Pilgrims.  They 
had  now  a  short  interval  of  pleasant  going,  over 
a  plain  called  Ease,  but  it  was  soon  passed,  and 
again  they  entered  into  danger.  Bunyan  has  put 
in  the  margin,  The  ease  that  Pilgrims  have  in 
this  life  is  short.  The  temptation  which  they 
now  encountered  was  that  of  filthy  lucre,  for  they 
came  to  a  silver  mine  in  the  side  of  a  hill,  and 
were  invited  by  a  very  gentlemanly  man,  Dem  as, 
to  turn  aside  for  a  little,  and  examine  this  mine, 
and  perhaps  undertake  a  small  speculation  for 
themselves.  Hopeful  was  for  going,  but  Christian 
held  him  back,  while  he  examined  Demas,  who 
declared  that  the  working  in  this  mine  was  not 
very  dangerous  except  to  those  who  were  careless. 
There  are  many  Pilgrims  who  reason  thus,  or  are 
ensnared  by  such  reasoning.  They  think  that  if 
other  men  have  perished  by  the  love  of  money,  it 
was  because  they  went  too  far ;  but  for  themselves, 
they  mean  just  to  enter  the  mine,  dig  a  little,  and 
50 


888  CHRISTIAN    AND    FAITHFUL 

then  come  out  again,  satisfied  to  have  neither  pover- 
ty nor  riches.  But  this  is  a  temptation,  where  one 
step  draws  on  another,  so  that  no  man  can  tell 
how  far  he  is  going  ;  and  the  damps  in  this  mine 
are  such,  that  the  further  men  go  in,  the  greater 
danger  they  encounter,  and  the  more  incapacitated 
they  are  from  turning  back.  For  they  that  will 
be  rich,  fall  into  temptation,  and  a  snare,  and 
into  many  foolish  and  hurtful  lusts,  which  drown 
men  in  destruction  and  perdition.  For  the  love 
of  money  is  the  root  of  all  evil ;  which,  while  some 
coveted  after,  they  have  erred  from  the  faith,  and 
pierced  themselves  through  with  many  sorrows. 

In  our  day  there  are  many  such  hills  Lucre,  and 
such  men  Demas,  to  be  encountered  in  our  pilgrim- 
age. But  the  air  of  the  mines,  it  is  observable,  is  in 
all  those  regions,  and  the  Pilgrims  who  turn  aside, 
generally  get  so  infected  with  it  that  they  are  ever 
after  either  greatly  hindered  and  weakened  in  their 
course,  or  entirely  disabled  from  pursuing  their 
pilgrimage.  There  are  also  certain  wild  lands 
stretching  off  behind  the  hill  Lucre,  where  some 
Pilgrims  wandering  in  search  of  treasure  have 
lost  their  way,  and  never  been  heard  of  more.  By 
divine  grace  the  vigilance  of  Christian  carried 
him  and  Hopeful  past  this  danger,  though  By- 
ends  and  all  his  company  went  into  the  mine  at 
the  first  invitation  from  Demas,  and  these  men 
were  never  more  seen  on  their  pilgrimage. 
^rThe  habits  of  conformity  to  the  world  in  Chris- 
tians, and  the  love  of  money  in  the  church  of 
Christ,  are  the  two  forms  of  sin  and  danger 
especially  brought  to  view  in  this  portion  of  the 


IN   VANITY    FAIR.  389 

Pilgrim's  Progress.  There  are  certain  passages  of 
Scripture,  certain  declarations  of  our  blessed  Lord, 
which  are  "sharp  arrows  in  the  hearts  of  the  King's 
enemies"  on  these  subjects.  What  shall  it  profit  a 
man,  if  he  gain  the  whole  world,  and  lose  his  own 
soul  ?  This  is  a  sum  in  profit  and  loss,  which  it 
will  take  eternity  to  cypher  out.  Therefore  let  no 
man  try  it ;  leave  it  to  the  Saviour.  Turn  you  to 
him  and  say,  Lord  thou  knowest ;  thou  knowest 
perfectly  what  the  soul  is,  and  what  eternity  is,  and 
I  do  not  know  either ;  and  what  it  is  to  lose  the 
soul,  God  grant  I  may  never  know.  Lord  keep  me 
from  making  this  experiment.  And  yet,  there  are 
multitudes  who  are  making  it,  multitudes  who  are 
playing  at  this  game,  working  at  this  sum  in 
arithmetic,  What  shall  it  profit  a  man  if  he  gain 
the  whole  world,  and  lose  his  own  soul?  This  is 
the  arithmetic  of  a  great  part  of  the  world  in 
Vanity  Fair.  Now  you  may  gain  the  world  if 
you  seek  it.  Its  comforts,  luxuries,  sinful  plea- 
sures, may  be  yours,  if  you  be  willing  to  barter 
your  soul  for  them ;  they  almost  always  come  at 
that  price;  so  you  may  gain  the  world,  you  may 
know  what  that  part  of  the  sum  is ;  but  what  it 
is  to  lose  the  soul,  that  computation  you  are  to 
make,  that  column  you  are  to  add  up,  in  eternity  ; 
and  that  is  an  experiment  which  you  cannot  make 
but  by  making  it  forever. 

Then  there  is  that  other  passage,  Ye  cannot  serve 
God  and  Mammon  ?  Cannot !  Yea,  cannot ;  it  is  an 
absolute  impossibility.  Then  the  life  of  a  great 
many  persons  is  a  perpetual  strife  after  what  is 
impossible,  for  many  are  striving  to  serve  God 


390  CHRISTIAN    AND    FAITHFUL 

and  Mammon.  Hard  working  people  they  are ; 
there  are  no  greater  drudges  in  the  word,  than 
those  By-ends  and  Money-Loves  and  Demases, 
who,  in  the  Christian  church,  are  working  away 
at  this  problem,  to  serve  God  and  Mammon. 
That  also  is  a  tremendous  sentence,  It  is  easier  for 
a  camel  to  go  through  the  eye  of  a  needle  than, 
for  a  rich  man  to  enter  the  kingdom  of  Heaven. 
"Often  as  the  motley  reflexes  of  my  experience  move 
in  long  processions  of  manifold  groups  before  me," 
says  a  great  writer,  and  certainly  not  a  cynical  man, 
Mr.  Coleridge,  "  the  distinguished  and  world- 
honored  company  of  Christian  Mammonists  ap- 
pear to  the  eye  of  my  imagination  as  a  drove  of 
camels  heavily  laden,  yet  all  at  full  speed,  and 
each  in  the  confident  expectation  of  passing 
through  the  eye  of  the  needle,  without  stop  or 
halt,  both  beasts  and  baggage  !"  From  such  sad 
and  fearful  madness  may  the  grace  of  our  God 
deliver  us ! 
4*  <J8? ' ' "'  4N  ^ 

Fulness  to  such  a  burden  is 

Who  go  on  pilgrimage ; 
Here  little,  and  hereafter  bliss, 

Is  best  from  age  to  age. 


DOUBTING      CASTLE 

AND 

GIANT    DESPAIR. 


Beauty  and  wisdom  of  this  delineation. — Many  ways  of  getting  into  tliis  Castle. — 
Only  one  way  to  get  out. — By-Path  Meadow  and  its  Allurements. — Enjoyment  oi 
Christian  and  Hopeful  before  they  went  into  it. — Their  discontent  with  the  rough- 
ness of  the  King's  highway. — Their  lour  errors. — Their  sleep  amidst  the  storm,  and 
the  discovery  of  them  by  Giant  Despair. — Their  treatment  and  behaviour  in  the 
Castle — A  Sabbath  morning  in  prayer. — Discovery  of  the  Key  of  Promise. — Their 
escape. — The  mercy  and  faithfulness  of  God  in  Christ. — Consequences  of  the 
hiding  of  God's  countenance. — Misery  of  being  without  God  in  Eternity. — Solemn 
Realities  of  this  Allegory. 

WE  are  coming  now  upon  a  scene  in  this  pil- 
grimage, which  is  drawn  from  the  experience  of 
all  travellers  towards  the  Celestial  City,  and  is  in  a 
greater  or  less  degree  familiar  to  them  all.  What 
Pilgrim  does  not  know  Doubting  Castle,  kept  by 
Giant  Despair?  Its  huge  keeps  and  moss-grown 
frowning  battlements  rise  before  us  almost  as 
familiar  as  the  Wicket  Gate ;  and  what  Pilgrims 
are  there,  that  have  not,  at  some  time  or  another, 
seen  the  inside  of  the  Castle  ?  They  may  not  all 
have  seen  Giant  Despair  in  person,  but  his  wife 
Diffidence  they  have  met  with,  and  the  under- 
keepers  of  his  prison.  They  may  not  all  have 
been  thrown  into  the  same  horrible  dungeon  where 
Christian  and  Hopeful  were  confined,  nor  visited 
51 


392  DOUBTING    CASTLE 

by  the  Giant  with  temptations  to  make  way  with 
themselves  in  their  miser}7,  but  in  some  cell  or 
another  they  have  had  to  bewail  their  sins,  and  to 
groan  and  suffer  by  reason  of  unbelieving  doubts 
and  fears.  So,  though  the  Dreamer,  in  the 
second  part  of  his  Pilgrim's  Progress,  gives  an 
account  of  the  destruction  of  the  Castle,  and  the 
death  of  the  Giant,  yet  no  man  believes  that  he  is 
dead,  and  still  from  day  to  day  the  Pilgrims  are 
straying  into  his  grounds,  and  finding  to  their  cost 
the  depth  and  terror  of  his  prisons.  Giant  Despair 
will  never  die,  so  long  as  unpardoned  sin  remains, 
or  a  sense  of  it  burdens  the  conscience  ;  nor  is 
there  any  security  against  tailing  into  his  hands, but 
in  the  care  and  mercy  of  One  who  is  mightier  than 
he,  even  Christ  Jesus. 

The  personification  of  Despair  is  one  of  the  most 
instructive  and  beautiful  portions  of  Bunyan's  Alle- 
gory. It  appeals  either  to  every  man's  experience, 
or  to  every  man's  prophetic  sense  of  what  may 
come  upon  him  on  account  of  sin.  It  is  at  once  in 
some  respects  the  very  gloomiest  and  very  bright- 
est part  of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress  ;  for  it  shows  at 
once  to  what  a  depth  of  misery  sin  may  plunge  the 
Christian,  and  also  to  what  a  depth  the  mercy  of 
God  in  Christ  may  reach.  The  coloring  of  the 
picture  is  extremely  vivid,  the  remembrance  of  it 
can  never  pass  from  the  mind  ;  and  as  in  a  gallery 
of  beautiful  paintings,  there  may  often  be  one  that 
so  strongly  reminds  yon  of  your  own  experience, 
and  carries  you  back  into  past  life  with  such 
power,  or  that  in  itself  is  so  remarkably  beautiful, 
as  to  chain  you  before  it  in  admiration,  and  keep 


AND   GIANT   DESPAIR.  393 

you  dwelling  upon  it  with  unabated  interest,  so  it 
is  with  this  delineation  of  Giant  Despair,  among  the 
many  admirable  sketches  of  Bunyan's  piety  and 
genius.  It  is  so  full  of  deep  life  and  meaning  that 
you  cannot  exhaust  it,  and  it  is  of  such  exquisite 
propriety  and  beauty  that  you  are  never  tired  with 
examining  it. 

It  is  easy  for  fallen  beings  to  get  into  Doubting 
Castle;  conviction  of  sin,  unaccompanied  by  a 
sense  of  the  mercy  of  Christ,  will  take*  any  man 
there  at  once ;  and  the  last  possession  and  abode 
of  the  soul  hardened  in  sin  and  abandoned  of  God 
must  be  DESPAIR.  There  are  many  ways  in  which 
even  a  Christian  may  come  there.  Some  men 
enter  by  unbelief,  and  whatever  state  of  mind  or 
habit  of  sin  shuts  out  the  Saviour,  is  sure  to  bring 
a  man  there  at  once.  Some  men  enter  by  pride 
and  self-righteousness  ;  if  a  man  trust  in  his  own 
merits,  instead  of  the  blood  and  righteousness  of 
Christ  for  justification,  he  may  seem  for  a  time  to 
be  at  large,  but  when  he  comes  to  know  his  own 
state,  the  bars  of  the  prison  will  be  round  about 
him,  and  Giant  Despair  will  be  his  keeper. 

Some  men  enter  this  Castle  by  habits  of  self- 
indulgence,  some  by  particular  cherished  sins, 
some  by  dallying  with  temptations,  some  by  sud- 
den falling  into  deep  sins,  some  by  neglect  of 
watchfulness  and  prayer,  some  by  a  gradual  creep- 
ing coldness  and  stupor  in  the  things  of  religion, 
the  dangerous  spirit  of  slumber  not  being  guarded 
against  and  resisted.  Some  get  into  this  prison  by 
natural  gloom  and  despondency  of  mind,  of  which 
Satan  takes  an  advantage ;  others  by  brooding  over 


394  DOUBTING  CASTLE. 

the  threatenings,  and  neglecting  the  promises  , 
others  by  going  to  penances  and  duties  for  the 
relief  of  conscience,  and  not  to  Christ.  Neglect  of 
duty  takes  most  men  to  prison,  but  duties  them- 
selves may  bring  us  there  if  we  trust  in  duties  for 
acceptance,  and  not  in  Christ.  Neglect  of  God's 
Word  will  take  men  to  this  prison,  and  leaning  to 
one's  own  understanding.  Distorted  views  of 
divine  truth,  speculative  error,  and  the  habit  of  spe- 
culation father  than  of  faith  and  life  in  divine 
things  may  shut  up  the  soul  in  darkness.  Some 
get  into  this  prison  by  spiritual  sins,  others  by 
sensual ;  some  by  the  lusts  of  the  flesh,  some  by 
the  lust  of  the  eyes,  some  by  the  pride  of  life  ; 
some  by  conformity  to  the  world,  and  obedience  to 
fashion  ;  some  by  the  pressure  of  business,  others 
by  the  cares  of  life  and  the  deceitfulness  of  riches  ; 
they  that  will  be  rich  are  always  on  the  way  to  this 
Castle,  if  not  in  it. 

There  is  a  way  to  this  Castle  from  the  Arbour 
on  the  Hill  Difficulty,  and  also  from  the  Enchanted 
Ground,  if  a  man  sleeps  there  and  loses  his  roll,  and 
then,  instead  of  going  to  Christ,  pursues  his  jour- 
ney without  it.  And  if  a  Christian,  when  he  has 
sinned  against  God,  stays  away  from  him,  and 
keeps  silence  towards  him,  then  he  will  be  so 
shut  up  and  beaten  in  this  prison,  that  his  bones 
will  wax  old  through  his  roaring  all  the  day  long. 
This  was  once  the  case  with  David.  David  fell 
into  this  Castle  by  gross  sin,  and  fearfully  was  he 
handled  by  Giant  Despair.  Asaph  fell  into  this 
Castle  by  doubting  and  complaining  of  God's  un- 
equal dealings  with  the  righteous  and  the  wicked, 


AND    GIANT   DESPAIR.  895 

so  that  he  was  as  a  beast  before  God.  Job  fell 
into  this  Castle  by  taking  a  wrong  view  of  God's 
chastisements,  and  he  only  got  out  by  this  saying ;  I 
know  that  my  Redeemer  liveth. 

A  child  of  God  may  fall  into  this  Castle  by  making 
a  wrong  use,  or  rather  by  not  making  a  right  use  of 
trials,  by  not  receiving  them  as  a  child  should  receive 
the  corrections  of  a  father.  A  repining  disposition 
will  very  quickly  bring  the  soul  into  this  prison. 
Jonah  fell  into  this  prison  by  running  away  from 
known  duty,  and  preferring  his  own  will  to  God's 
will.  He  went  down  to  the  bottoms  of  the  moun- 
tains, so  that  he  had  to  cry  out  of  the  belly  of  hell ; 
and  God  heard  his  voice.  Thomas  fell  into  the  Cas- 
tle by  obstinate  unbelief,  so  that  all  the  prayers  and 
tears  of  his  fellow  disciples  could  not  bring  him  out, 
and  he  came  out  only  by  that  gracious  voice  of  the 
Saviour,  Be  not  faithless  but  believing  !  Peter 
fell  into  this  Castle,  about  the  same  time,  and  wept 
bitterly,  and  it  was  nothing  but  the  mercy  of  the 
same  Saviour  that  brought  him  out.  Satan  would 
have  kept  him  there,  had  it  not  been  for  that 
wonderful  prayer  of  the  Saviour  before-hand,  I 
have  prayed  for  thee,  that  thy  faith  fail  not. 

Alas  !  alas  !  how  many  ways  there  are  of  getting 
into  this  gloomy  prison  !  Oh,  if  Christ  be  not  al- 
ways with  the  soul,  or  if  at  any  time  it  go 
astray  from  him,  or  if  its  reliance  be  on  any  thing 
whatever  but  his  mercy,  his  blood,  his  grace,  then 
is  it  near  the  gloom  of  this  Dungeon  ;  then  may 
Giant  Despair  be  heard  walking  in  his  grounds, 
and  verily  the  echo  of  his  footsteps  oftentimes 
falls  upon  the  soul  before  the  grim  form  rises  on 


396  DOUBTING    CASTLE 

the  vision.  And  some  who  have  once  entered  the 
Castle  have  staid  there  a  great  while,  because  they 
have  tried  many  other  means  of  escape,  than  by 
the  blood  of  Christ ;  because  they  have  used  pick- 
locks, and  penances,  and  stratagems,  and  the  help 
of  friends  outside  the  Castle,  but  not  the  Key 
of  Promise,  or  not  aright,  not  throwing  them- 
selves on  the  Saviour  alone  for  pardon,  peace 
and  justification.  A  man  who  gets  into  difficulty 
through  sin,  will  never  get  out  by  self-righteous- 
ness, nor  are  past  sins,  nor  the  burden  of  them,  to 
be  ever  removed  by  present  morality  ;  nothing  but 
Faith,  nothing  but  the  precious  blood  of  Christ, 
can  take  away  sin,  can  remove  the  stain  of  it, 
can  deliver  the  soul  from  its  condemnation. 

Perhaps,  notwithstanding  there  are  so  many 
examples  of  great  sins  bringing  men  into  his 
power,  yet,  with  the  majority  of  Christians,  it 
is  little  sins  neglected,  and  sins  of  omission, 
and  duties  undone,  that  shut  them  up  in  Doubt- 
ing Castle,  kept  by  Giant  Despair.  Duties  un- 
done are  in  reality  great  sins,  but  they  do  not 
strike  the  conscience  with  such  immediate  terror 
as  open  sins,  and  therefore  perhaps  they  are  the 
more  dangerous.  The  soul  gets  sadly  accus- 
tomed to  such  neglects,  and  there  is  always 
some  plausible  excuse  in  the  first  instance,  in 
the  beginnings,  a  man  being  always  determined 
to  repair  the  neglect  immediately  ;  but  it  soon 
grows  into  a  habit,  and  then  the  conscience  ceases 
to  be  so  tender  on  that  point,  and  at  length  there 
comes  to  be  such  an  accumulation  of  neglects  and 
omissions,  that  there  is  no  computing  them. 

n 


AND    GIANT   DESPAIR.  397 

Now,  when  this  is  the  case,  and  yet  a  man 
attempts  to  keep  on  in  his  Christian  course, 
beneath  the  burden  of  such  neglect  of  duty,  he 
is  much  like  a  man  who  has  failed  in  business 
under  a  heavy  load  of  debt,  and  attempts  to  set 
up  again  before  his  creditors  have  released  him, 
so  that  if  at  any  time  they  come  upon  him,  all 
his  new  earnings  are  gone  at  once,  and  he  is 
penniless.  So  a  Christian  without  coming  to  a 
reckoning  with  himself  and  Christ  concerning 
such  neglects  of  duty,  and  such  habits  of  neg- 
lect, may  think  he  is  going  on  well,  but  the 
moment  a  sense  of  these  sins  comes  to  him,  he 
finds  himself  in  the  grounds  of  Giant  Despair, 
and  is  taken  away  to  his  Castle,  and  there  he  has 
to  bewail  his  guilt  and  misery,  sometimes  many 
days  before  mercy  comes  to  him.  And  never  can 
he  find  mercy,  but  by  casting  himself,  with  all  his 
accumulation  and  burden  of  sins  upon  Christ. 
And  oh  what  mercy  it  is  to  be  reclaimed  from 
such  habits  of  neglect  to  a  habit  of  watchfulness, 
even  at  the  expense  of  ever  so  many  days  and 
nights  in  this  Castle  !  Better  by  far  to  be  seized 
by  Giant  Despair  while  mercy  may  be  sought, 
while  Christ  is,  as  it  were,  yet  within  hearing, 
than  to  be  left  to  go  on  at  ease  amidst  neglects  of 
duty,  and  to  become  hardened  in  sin  without 
meeting  the  Giant,  without  being  wakened  to  a 
sense  of  guilt  by  his  black  countenance  and  his 
heavy  club.  Men  sometimes  neglect  secret  prayer 
for  present  business  or  pleasure  ;  this  is  getting 
over  the  stile,  and  taking  a  few  steps  in  By-Path 
Meadow  ;  then  a  few  steps  farther  are  taken,  and 


398  DOUBTING   CASTLE 

thus  gradually  the  soul  gets  farther  and  farther 
from  God,  from  Christ,  from  grace,  from  duty, 
and  duty  becomes  more  difficult,  and  the  allure- 
ments of  By-Path  Meadow  more  dangerous,  per- 
haps openly  sinful ;  and  then  the  night  and  storm 
come  on,  and  in  the  morning,  Giant  Despair, 
prowling  about  his  grounds,  takes  the  trespassers, 
and  shuts  them  under  lock  and  key  in  his  dungeon. 
The  pursuit  of  duty,  though  it  be  the  way  of 
self-denial,  is  without  doubt  the  only  way  of  peace 
and  safety.  But  some  Pilgrims  get  into  Doubting 
Castle  by  neglecting  one  set  of  duties  while  they 
perform  others.  In  all  our  callings  there  are 
some  duties  more  difficult  than  others,  and  some 
that  are  more  pleasing  to  our  natural  inclina- 
tions. A  merchant  or  tradesman  loves  to  be 
diligent  in  his  business,  and  all  the  active  duties 
and  even  great  fatigue  in  the  course  of  it,  are  yet 
pleasing  to  him ;  but  the  Word  of  God  and 
prayer  are  not  so  naturally  pleasing  to  him,  and 
spiritual  fatigue  is  not  so  readily  encountered 
by  him.  A  fanner  loves  the  external  occupations 
of  his  farm,  and  he  must  make  hay  while  the  sun 
shines,  and  he  is  not  likely  to  get  into  By-Path 
Meadow  by  neglecting  the  making  of  his  hay  ;  but 
it  is  not  so  natural  for  him  to  pray,  and  he  may 
possibly  get  into  Doubting  Castle  by  neglecting 
his  prayers  in  August,  that  he  may  get  in  his  hay 
in  its  season  during  the  fair  weather.  A  minister, 
who  loves  more  to  study,  or  to  visit,  than  to  pray, 
finds  it  very  easy  to  study  but  very  hard  to  pray  ; 
sometimes  his  very  sermons  may  so  occupy  him, 
that  he  too  may  think  he  has  not  present  time 


AND    GIANT    DESPAIR.  399 

for  prayer  ;  nevertheless,  by  neglects  and  omissions 
in  any  way,  he  may  fall  into  Doubting  Castle,  kept 
by  Giant  Despair.  A  prudent,  busy  house-wife 
may  love  much  better  to  be  like  Martha,  anxious 
and  troubled  about  many  things,  bustling  and  busy 
from  morning  till  night,  than  to  be  like  Mary, 
sitting  at  the  feet  of  Jesus.  Domestic  avoca- 
tions often  constitute  a  By-Path  Meadow,  where 
spiritual  duties  are  neglected,  and  so  the  soul 
wanders  into  the  regions  of  Giant  Despair. 

The  delineation  of  By-Path  Meadow,  with  the 
experience  of  the  Pilgrims  in  it,  is  very  affecting 
and  very  beautiful.  Every  man  knows  what  By- 
Path  Meadow  means,  as  well  as  what  Doubting 
Castle  signifies.  In  general,  some  habit  or  mode 
of  self-indulgence,  some  shrinking  back  from  the 
hardness  of  the  pilgrimage,  and  some  departure 
from  its  duties,  for  indulgence  to  the  flesh,  is 
here  shadowed  forth.  But  it  is  observable  that 
just  before  the  Pilgrims  wandered  from  the  right 
way  into  this  Meadow  they  had  a  season  of  great 
delight  in  the  Word  of  God,  great  enjoyment  in 
their  Christian  pilgrimage.  After  by  divine  grace 
they  had  been  delivered  from  the  temptations  of 
Demas,  they  had  sweet  communion  with  God, 
reviving  communications  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  rich 
draughts  from  the  Water  of  Life,  delightful  views 
of  the  preciousness  of  Christ,  and  such  green 
pastures,  such  quiet  meadows,  with  lillies  and 
still  waters,  that  it  seemed  as  if  all  their  conflicts 
were  over,  and  they  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  enjoy 
these  abundant  consolations.  The  passage  in 
which  Bunyan  has  descibed  these  earnests  of  the 
52 


400  DOUBTING    CASTLE 

Spirit,  these  sweet  foretastes  of  the  heavenly  rest, 
comprehends  one  of  the  most  ravishing  intervals 
in  the  experience  of  Christian  and  Hopeful. 

"  I  saw  then,"  says  Bunyan,  "  that  they  went  on 
their  way  to  a  pleasant  river,  which  David  the  King 
called  the  River  of  God,  but  John,  the  River  of  the 
Water  of  Life.  Now  their  way  lay  just  upon 
bank  of  the  River ;  here  therefore  Christian  and 
his  companion  walked  with  great  delight ;  they 
drank  also  of  the  water  of  the  river,  which  was 
pleasant  and  enlivening  to  their  weary  spirits. 
Besides,  on  the  banks  of  the  river,  on  either 
side,  were  green  trees  with  all  manner  of  fruit ; 
and  the  leaves  they  ate  to  prevent  surfeits,  and 
other  diseases  that  are  incident  to  those  that  heat 
their  blood  by  travels.  On  either  side  of  the 
river  was  also  a  meadow,  curiously  beautified  with 
lillies  ;  and  it  was  green  all  the  year  long.  In  this 
meadow  they  lay  down  and  slept,  for  here  they 
might  lie  down  safely.  When  they  awoke,  they 
gathered  again  of  the  fruit  of  the  trees,  and  drank 
again  of  the  water  of  the  river,  and  then  lay  down 
again  to  sleep.  Thus  they  did  several  days  and 
nights." 

Here  was  a  season  of  deep  and  exquisite  enjoy- 
ment in  the  Word  of  God,  and  the  exercises  of  the 
Divine  Life.  How  could  the  Pilgrims  turn  aside 
from  it  so  soon  1  Perhaps  it  was  by  forgetting 
the  Saviour's  purpose  in  granting  these  enjoy- 
ments, taking  that  for  their  rest  which  was  only 
meant  to  add  to  their  holiness,  and  prepare  them 
for  labor.  The  truth  is,  that  the  active  duties  of 
the  Christian  pilgrimage  are  never  in  themselves 


AND    GIANT    DESPAIR.  401 

so  delightful  as  the  River  of  the  Water  of  Life 
flowing  through  the  soul ;  that  is,  they  require  self- 
denial,  and  are  attended  with  difficulty.  When 
the  affections  are  drawn  out  after  Christ,  and  are 
warm  towards  God  and  heaven,  and  all  external 
things  go  pleasantly,  how  easy  and  how  sweet  it  is 
to  wander  up  and  down  along  the  banks  of  the 
River,  treading  the  soft  grass,  eating  the  wholesome 
and  delicious  fruits,  and  breathing  the  fragrance  of 
the  flowers.  Do  we  not  sometimes  have  such 
seasons  ?  But  they  are  given  to  us,  as  the  Arbor 
was  in  the  midst  of  the  Hill  Difficulty,  not  for 
indulgence  to  the  flesh,  but  to  invigorate  and 
prepare  us  for  active  duty  ;  not  to  constitute  a  rest, 
which  we  may  quietly  enjoy,  but  to  fit  us  for 
remaining  toil,  for  increasing  activity  arid  use- 
fulness. 

Now,  then,  if  the  Pilgrims  think  too  much  of 
these  comforts,  if  they  are  rather  seeking  after 
spiritual  enjoyment,  than  for  usefulness  and 
growth  in  grace  by  active  discipline  and  duty,  it  is 
possible  that  spiritual  enjoyments  themselves  may 
become  a  snare,  making  the  Pilgrim  unwilling  to 
separate  from  such  a  blessed  quietness  of  life, 
when  the  pilgrimage  leads  to  a  rougher  road, 
where  the  river  and  the  road  part  for  a  season. 
To  read  the  Bible  and  to  pray  are  easy  duties, 
even  for  weak  Christians,  when  the  heart  is  full  of 
love,  and  God's  countenance  is  shining  ;  but  to 
go  out  into  the  highways  and  hedges,  to  visit  the 
poor  and  afflicted,  to  do  missionary  work,  to 
bear  trials,  to  seek  to  win  sinful  men  to  Christ,  as 
you  have  opportunity,  this  always  requires  selfr. 


402  DOUBTING    CASTLE 

denial ;  so  that  By-Path  Meadow  may  be  very 
attractive,  and  those  very  persons  may  be  tempted 
to  pursue  it,  who  have  been  enjoying  much  in  the 
Word  of  God  and  in  prayer,  but  who,  when  trying 
times  come  on,  and  painful  labors  are  necessary, 
listen  to  the  voice  of  self-indulgence.  This  we 
are  always  apt  to  do,  and  nothing  but  divine 
grace  can  make  us  submit  to  diving  discipline. 

A  spirit  of  discontent  and  repining  amidst 
trials,  a  spirit  of  rebellion  because  God  takes 
away  our  mercies,  is  likely  at  any  time,  if  in- 
dulged, to  bring  the  soul  into  the  Castle  of  Gi- 
ant Despair.  If  we  have  been  enjoying  much  of 
God's  goodness,  both  inward  and  external,  and 
then,  because  the  path  of  duty  leads  through  suf- 
fering, /  because  God  sends  us  on  errands  hu- 
miliati  -g  to  our  pride,  we  shrink  back  from  duty, 
and  take  some  compromising  course,  we  may 
seem  to  be  travelling  in  a  meadow,  but  the 
ejd  thereof  is  danger  and  gloom.  When  a  man 
efuses  to  undergo  such  labor  and  suffering  for 
Christ  as  lie  in  the  way  of  his  duty,  he  will  have  to 
suffer  far  more  inwardly  than  he  ever  could  have 
Jone  outwardly.  The  sufferings  of  Christian  and 
Hopeful  in  the  grounds  and  castle  of  Giant  Despair 
were  incomparably  greater  than  all  the  fatigue  they 
could  have  endured  while  travelling  the  rough  road 
of  their  pilgrimage.  Yet  we  often  forget,  when 
hardness  comes,  that  our  business  is  to  endure 
hardness,  as  good  soldiers  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Our  simple  heavenly-minded  Pilgrims  seem  to 
have  forgotten  this  for  a  season,  and  to  have  ex- 
pected nothing  but  enjoyment  all  the  rest  of  the 


AND    GIANT   DESPAIR.  408 

way.  But  now  the  river  and  the  way  for  a  time 
parted,  and  the  way  was  rough;  so  still  as  they 
went  they  wished  for  a  better.  Here  were  the 
first  beginnings  of  discontent,  and  they  ought  to 
have  repressed  them.  They  should  have  said,  It 
is  true  this  way  is  not  so  pleasant  as  the  Mea- 
dow, but  it  is  the  Lord's  way,  and  the  best,  doubt- 
less, for  us  to  travel  in ;  these  trials  are  of  God's 
making  for  us,  and  they  come  in  the  way  of  our 
duty  ;  so  we  must  still  go  on  and  be  thankful.  But 
they  said,  How  very  rough  is  the  way,  how  painful, 
how  fatiguing !  I  wish  there  were  a  better  way  ; 
can  we  not  find  an  easier  way  1  When  Christians 
thus  allow  themselves  to  wish  for  a  better  way  than 
the  way  of  God's  appointment,  Satan  is  generally 
at  hand  to  point  out  some  way  that  seems  easier 
and  better,  and  to  tempt  the  soul  to  wander  in  it. 
A  man  speedily  enters  into  temptation  when  he 
becomes  discontented  with  God's  allotments ; 
then  Satan  presents  allurements,  and  from  wish- 
ing for  a  better  way  the  soul  goes  into  a  worse. 
The  discontented  wish  is  father  to  a  sinful  will ;  1 
wish  for  a  better  is  followed  by  I will  have  a  better ; 
and  so  the  soul  goes  astray. 

The  Pilgrims  had  no  sooner  wished  for  a  better, 
than  By-Path  Meadow  presented  itself,  with  a  con- 
venient, tempting  stile.  This  is  very  opportune, 
said  they,  just  what  we  were  wishing  for;  we'll  not 
walk  in  the  dust,  when  we  can  tread  upon  grass 
and  flowers,  especially  if  the  meadow  lies  along 
the  wayside.  So  they  went  to  the  stile  to  see.  This 
was  entering  into  temptation,  this  was  looking  on 
the  wine  when  it  was  red,  this  was  a  \i  xndering 


404  DOUBTING  CASTLE. 

sinful  desire,  not  checked  but  dallied  with.     It 
the  same  thing,  said  they,  the  meadow  and  the  road 
go  on  together.     But  it  is  a  dangerous  thing  to  be 
trying  the  experiment  how  far  we  may  sin  safely. 
These  Pilgrims,  contrary  to  their  usual  wont,  were 
now  trying  the  experiment   with  how  little    self 
denial   they  could  get  along  in  their  pilgrimage, 
and  of  course  with  how  much  self-indulgence  it 
might  consist.     But  this,  I  say,  is  very  dangerous. 
It  is  like  venturesome  schoolboys  trying  how  far 
they  may  make  the  thin  ice  bend  under  them  over  a 
deep  place,  without  breaking  through.     This  going 
as  far  as  you  can  on  debateable  ground  is  a  great 
injury   to   the   tenderness  of  the  conscience.     A 
man  who  will  go  as  far  as  he  may,  is  sure  to  go 
farther  than    he  ought,  and   then  a   tempestuous 
night  and  Giant  Despair's  Castle  are  not  far  off. 
So  deceitful  are  the  ways  of  sin,  that  the  first  steps 
of  travel  in  them  seemed  to  these  Pilgrims   but 
as  an  indulgence  to  wearied,   sore-footed  Virtue. 
True,  there  is  no  want  of  company  in  such  a  case. 
There  are  those  who  travel  in  By-Path  Meadow 
without  any  scruple  at  all ;  so  the  Pilgrims  speedily 
espied  a  man  going  before  them  at  a  great  rate, 
whose  name  was  Vain-confidence,  of  whom  (silly 
men)  they  asked  if  this  were  the  way  to  the  Celestial 
City ;  and  he  told  them  Most   certainly,  he  was 
straight   in  it   himself!       So  sometimes   the  real 
Pilgrims  take  counsel  and  example  of  strangers, 
of  worldly  men,   and  of  presumptuous,  careless 
persons,  who  have  little  or  no  conscience.     Vain 
confidence  is  a  sad  guide   any  where,  but  espe- 
cially when  one  has  wandered  out  of  the 


AND    GIANT   DESPAIR.  405 

Now  there  were  four  capital  errors  which  the 
Pilgrims  had  already  committed  ;  (1,)  they  had 
discontentedly  wished  for  a  better  way ;  (2,)  they 
had  gone  up  to  the  stile  to  look  over  it ;  (3,)  they 
had  climbed  over  the  stile  ;  (4,)  they  had  taken 
encouragement  by  a  wrong  example,  and  followed 
Vain-confidence  ;  and,  what  was  strange,  the  older 
and  stronger  Christian  had  led  the  younger  and 
weaker  one  out  of  the  way.  Now  when  the  night 
came  on,  and  the  storm,  they  began  to  find  how 
evil  and  bitter  a  thing  it  is  to  wander  from  God. 
They  heard  the  fall  of  Vain-confidence  into  a  deep, 
dreadful  pit,  and  they  heard  him  groan,  but  could 
see  nothing  ;  and  now  they  bemoan  their  folly, 
and  though  they  are  both  in  a  sad  case,  yet  Chris- 
tian's is  certainly  the  worse,  for  having  led  Hopeful 
out  of  the  way  ;  and  most  humbly  and  ingenuously 
does  he  beg  his  brother's  pardon. 

But  why,  in  that  tempestuous  night,  when  the 
waters  were  rising  around  them,  did  they  not  obey 
the  voice  which  they  heard,  and  persevere,  amidst 
all  dangers,  till  they  had  gotten  again  into  the 
King's  highway  1  Sometimes  the  Pilgrims,  who 
have  thus  wandered  into  darkness,  seek  relief  by 
duties,  and  not  by  Christ ;  and  so  conscience  gets 
a  temporary  quiet,  but  a  false  one ;  there  is  no  place 
of  safety,  short  of  Christ.  Some  such  relief  these 
Pilgrims  seem  to  have  gotten,  in  that  they  reached 
a  rising  ground,  above  the  waters,  and  there  being 
thoroughly  tired,  and  not  being  able,  or  thinking 
they  were  not,  to  reach  the  King's  highway  that 
nighn  they  there  lay  down  and  slept.  But  ah,  what 
si  can  there  be  until  the  soul  has  come 


406  DOUBTING    CASTLE 

back  to  Christ  ?  What  sleep  can  there  be  amidst 
unforgiven  sin  ?  They  had  better  not  have  slept 
at  all,  but  kept  struggling  amidst  the  storm  all 
night  long,  for  these  grounds  were  the  grounds 
of  Giant  Despair,  and  Giant  Despair  found  them, 
not  striving  to  get  back,  but  fast  asleep  for  sor- 
row and  weariness.  Ah,  what  safety  can  there 
be  for  sleepers  away  from  Christ  1  This  sleep  was 
worse  for  Christian  and  Hopeful  that  that  in  the 
Arbor.  So  do  Christians  sometimes  make  an 
imperfect  return  to  duty  in  their  own  strength  ; 
and  conscience  thus  being  imperfectly  quieted, 
lulled  by  a  sleep,  and  not  sprinkled  by  the  blood 
of  Christ,  Giant  Despair  after  all  finds  them  in 
his  grounds,  a'nd  carries  them  away  to  his  castle. 

Now  were  Christian  and  Hopeful  in  a  dreadful 
case  ;  deep  down  in  darkness,  the  bars  of  the 
earth  and  of  death  around  them,  no  food,  nor 
drink,  nor  light,  nor  comfort,  the  weeds  were 
wrapped  about  their  head,  and  in  this  dungeon 
they  cried  as  out  of  the  belly  of  hell,  bemoan- 
ing themselves  to  one  another  with  groans  and 
lamentations.  The  description  which  Bunyan  has 
given  of  their  treatment  by  the  Giant  is  exquisitely 
beautiful  and  affecting;  no  part  of  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress  makes  a  deeper  impression  than  this ;  and 
the  different  manner  in  which  the  two  Pilgrims 
endure  these  trials,  forms  a  development  of  charac- 
ter which  in  no  other  portion  of  the  work  is  more 
profound  and  instructive.  Hopeful  continues  hope- 
ful, even  in  despair;  Christian  at  one  time  abandons 
all  hope,  and  listens  seriously  to  the  Giant's  in- 
fernal temptations  to  self-destruction.  Hopeful 


AND    GIANT   DESPAIR.  407 

had  not  fallen  so  far  as  Christian,  for  Christian  had 
been  the  more  eminent  and  experienced  Pilgrim 
of  the  two,  and  had  also  led  his  fellow  astray.  But 
this  did  not  make  all  the  difference.  Hopeful's 
frame  of  mind  was  ^naturally  more  elastic  than 
Christian's  ;  he  was  of  a  more  joyous  tempera- 
ment, and  more  apt  to  look  on  the  bright  side ; 
not  so  deep,  grave  and  far-sighted  as  Chris- 
tian, and  not  capable,  in  any  case,  of  quite  such 
deep  trials  of  feeling.  Hopeful's  spirits  soon 
rose  again,  but  Christian,  when  he  is  down  on  ac- 
count of  sin,  is  brought  even  to  the  gates  of  hell. 
How  affectingly  instructive  are  Hopeful's  argu- 
ments with  Christian  to  dissuade  him  from  sui- 
cide. Doubtless,  good  men  have  been  tempted  in 
this  way,  but  strange  enough  it  seems  that  a  sense 
of  God's  wrath  and  desertion  on  account  of  sin 
should  tempt  a  man  to  plunge  deeper  into  such 
wrath,  nay,  to  incur  it  past  redemption. 

Christian  never  dreamed  of  destroying  himself 
when  he  was  fighting  with  Apollyon,  in  passing 
through  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death : 
but  a  sense  of  sin,  and  of  God's  wrath  on  account 
of  it,  quite  unmans  the  soul ;  none  can  stand 
against  God's  terrors.  A  thousand  fiends  may 
easier  be  met  with,  than  the  remembrance  of  one 
sin.  Besides,  in  the  conflict  with  Apollyon,  and 
the  passage  of  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death, 
Christian  was  in  the  course  of  his  duty  ;  both  these 
dangers  lay  directly  in  the  path  to  the  Celestial 
City,  so  that,  though  hard  beset,  and  pressed  out 
of  measure,  Christian  was  not  despairing,  for  he 
knew  he  met  those  evils  in  the  right  way  ;  but  here 
53 


408  DOUBTING    CASTLE 

he  was  out  of  the  way.  Giant  Despair's  Castle 
could  not  even  be  seen  from  the  King's  highway ; 
it  was  so  far  off  that  he  wandered  a  long  distance 
before  he  came  in  sight  of  it,  and  here  the  Pilgrims 
were  far  from  the  road,  they  knew  not  how  far. 
They  were  in  such  desperation,  that  for  a  long  time 
they  could  do  nothing  but  brood  over  their  gloomy 
thoughts,  and  they  hardly  dared  to  pray. 

All  this  is  related  as  a  story,  with  such  natural 
incidents,  with  such  power  of  character,  and  such 
vivid  coloring,  that  no  story  of  a  life  could  be  more 
graphic  ;  and  yet  it  is  allegory,  it  is  the  experience 
of  the  mind  alone  ;  but  allegory  so  perfect,  the  ex- 
perience so  touched  into  life,  that  each  becomes 
either,  and  may  be  perfect  story  or  allegory,  as  you 
please.  The  temptations  to  suicide,  presented  by 
Giant  Despair,  constitute  a  description  so  wonder- 
fully similar  to  a  passage  in  Spenser  on  the  same 
subject,  that  it  would  have  seen  as  if  Bunyan  must 
have  read  the  Fairy  Queen.  The  effect  of  the  vile 
arguments  of  Despair  upon  the  knight  in  Spenser 
is  very  similar  to  that  of  the  arguments  used  by  the 
Giant  upon  Christian.  The  poor  Pilgrim  was  al- 
most beside  himself  in  his  misery. 

And  yet,  this  is  the  man  who  overcame  the  Hill 
Difficulty,  and  passed  through  the  Valley  of  the 
Shadow  of  Death,  and  passed  so  nobly  through 
Vanity  Fair.  This  is  the  hero  of  that  dread  con- 
flict with  Apollyon.  And  now  he,  whom  the  world 
could  not  overcome,  nor  fiends  destroy,  thinks  of 
destroying  himself!  Oh  the  intolerable  misery  of 
an  accusing  conscience !  The  sense  of  the  guilt 
of  our  departure  from  God  is  far  worse  to  bear 


AND    GIANT   DESPAIR.  409 

than  the  mere  hiding  of  God's  countenance  ;  it 
makes  cowards  and  slaves  of  the  bravest. 

In  this  state  did  Christian  and  Hopeful  remain 
day  after  day,  night  after  night,  though  it  was  all 
night  with  them,  and  no  light  but  to  discover  sights 
of  wo.  Yet,  after  all,  they  would  not  give  way  to 
the  suggestions  of  Giant  Despair.  It  is  a  curious 
picture,  which  Bunyan  has  drawn  of  the  intercourse 
between  the  Giant  and  his  wife  Diffidence.  They 
form  a  very  loving  couple  in  their  way,  and  the 
Giant  takes  no  new  step  in  the  treatment  of  the 
Pilgrims  without  consulting  Mrs.  Diffidence  over 
night ;  so  that  the  curtain  lectures  to  which  we  lis- 
ten are  very  curious.  But  Mrs.  Diffidence  ought 
rather  to  have  been  called  Dame  Desperation,  or 
Desperate  Resolution  ;  for  she  seems,  if  anything, 
the  more  stubborn  genius  of  the  two ;  and  when 
the  Giant,  very  much  astonished  that  "  the  sturdy 
rogues"  hold  out  so  long  against  his  temptations 
and  his  beatings,  brings  the  case  to  her  at  night  for 
advice,  she  proposes  his  taking  the  Pilgrims  into 
the  Castle  Yard,  to  show  them  the  fearful  heap  of 
the  sculls  and  bones  of  Pilgrims  who  have  been 
by  him  destroyed. 

Nevertheless,  all  would  not  avail  utterly  to  subdue 
the  Pilgrims ;  though  in  deep  misery,  they  waited 
still,  and  Hopeful  would  still  be  encouraging  his 
brother,  though  it  seemed  to  be  hoping  against 
hope.  Like  as  in  the  Slough  of  Despond,  at  first 
setting  out  on  the  pilgrimage,  they  were  unable  to 
see  the  promises,  or  in  dreadful,  sullen  unbelief, 
refused  to  take  hold  upon  them,  as  being  beyond 
their  case.  And  this  was  partly  because  as  yet, 


410  DOUBTING    CASTLE 

though  bemoaning  their  sin  and  misery,  they  had 
not  returned  to  prayer ;  a  dreadful  case,  whenever 
it  happens  to  the  Christian ;  for  when,  from 
any  cause,  he  is  driven  from  the  throne  of  grace, 
or  yielding  to  temptation,  stays  away  from  that 
sure  refuge,  he  is  indeed  in  terrible  danger,  he  is 
well  nigh  lost.  And  this  cannot  remain,  for  he 
he  must  either  pray  or  be  lost,  and  it  is  in  prayer 
that  he  generally  finds  the  first  light  after  dark 
ness.  So  Bunyan,  with  exquisite  beauty  and 
truth,  makes  his  Pilgrims  resume  this  weapon  of 
All-Prayer,  compelled  unto  it  by  their  very  depth 
of  guilt  and  misery. 

It  is  Saturday  night,  and  all  night  long  they 
wrestle  in  prayer,  till  the  very  break  of  day ; 
all  night  long  before  they  see  the  promise.  The 
Sabbath  as  it  breaks,  finds  them  in  prayer  ;  and 
now,  as  the  dawn  begins  to  make  silvery  gray  the 
sky  and  the  mountains  outside  the  Castle,  so 
the  unwonted  light  is  breaking  on  the  soul  in 
the  Pilgrim's  Dungeon.  All  at  once,  as  if  it 
were  a  new  revelation,  Christian  finds  and  ap- 
plies the  Promises  ;  and  indeed  it  is  a  new  revela- 
tion, which  none  but  the  merciful  Saviour  could 
make  ;  he  it  is,  who  has  been  watching  over  his 
erring  disciples  ;  he  it  is,  who  has  known  their 
path,  when  their  soul  was  overwhelmed  within 
them  ;  he  it  is,  who  has  kept  back  the  hand  of  De- 
spair from  destroying  them.  They  have  gone  astray 
like  lost  sheep  ;  he  it  is,  who  leaveth  the  ninety  and 
nine  upon  the  mountains,  and  seeketh  the  hun- 
dredth one,  until  he  findeth  it ;  he  it  is,  who  binds 
up  the  broken  in  heart,  and  healeth  all  their  wounds. 


AND    GIANT   DESPAIR.  411 

They  were  praying,  Restore  unto  me  the  joy  of 
thy  Salvation,  and  uphold  me  by  thy  free  Spirit ; 
cast  me  not  away  from  thy  presence,  and  take  not 
thy  Holy  Spirit  from  me  ; — and  now  as  the  Sab- 
bath dawns,  when  Jesus  himself  arose  from  the 
tomb,  the  star  of  Hope  rises  on  the  hearts  of  these 
prisoned  ones,  and  they  suddenly  cried  out,  as  a 
glimpse   of    the     Saviour's   long-hidden    counte- 
nance broke  through  their   gloom,  There  is  for- 
giveness with  thee,  that  thou  mayest  be  feared, 
with  thee  there  is  plenteous  redemption  !     What 
a  fool  am  I,  said  Christian,  to  lie  in  this  filthy 
dungeon,  when  I  have  a  key  in  my  bosom,  that  I 
am   persuaded  will  open  every  lock  in  Doubting 
Castle  !   Yes,  it  was  in  his  bosom  ;  and  it  had  been 
there  ever    since   he   entered  the  Wicket   Gate. 
But  who  made   him   now  feel   it  1     Who   made 
him   remember   it   now,  after  so  long    forgetful- 
ness,   and  who  gave  him  skill    and   strength   to 
use  his  golden  key  aright  ?     It  was  God,  against 
whom  he  had  sinned  ;  the  Saviour,  whom  he  had 
wounded ;    the    merciful    Spirit,    whom   he    had 
grieved.     But  now,  the  key  !  the  key  !  put  it  into 
the  lock  and  try  it !     They  trembled  with  fear  and 
eagerness  ;  the  creaking  of  the  rusty  hinges  made 
them  tremble  ;     they   felt  as  if  they  could   hear 
the  breathing  of  the  Giant  after  them,  as  if  his 
grasp  was  upon  their  shoulders,  and   it  was  not 
till  they  had  passed  the  outer  gate  of  the  Castle, 
and  got  into  the  clear  open  air,  that  they  dared 
believe  they  were  really  escaping. 

It  was  Sabbath  morning.     The  sun  was  break- 
ing over  the  hills,  and  fell  upon  their  pale,  hag- 


412  DOUBTING    CASTLE 

gard  countenances.  It  was  to  them  a  new  crea- 
tion ;  they  breathed  the  fresh,  reviving  air,  and 
brushed,  with  hasty  steps,  the  dew  from  the  un- 
trodden grass,  and  fled  the  nearest  way  to  the 
stile,  over  which  they  had  wandered.  How  much 
they  had  suffered !  But  they  had  learned  a 
lesson  by  that  suffering,  which  nothing  else  could 
have  taught  them,  and  which  would  remain  with 
them  to  the  day  of  their  death.  They  had  learned, 
from  bitter  experience,  that  any  thing  and  all 
things  had  better  be  endured,  than  to  depart 
from  God  and  duty ;  and  that  whereas  ease 
sought  in  the  way  of  their  pilgrimage  might  seern 
as  a  sweet  meadow  for  a  time,  it  would  prove  in 
the  end  a  more  intolerable  evil,  than  all  the  rough- 
ness and  hardness  of  the  King's  highway. 

They  had  learned  also  to  value  the  light  of  God's 
countenance  as  they  never  did  before,  to  watch 
as  they  never  did  before,  against  every  thing  that 
might  interrupt  that  light,  or  shut  out  the  Saviour 
from  their  souls.  They  had  learned  to  distrust 
themselves  more  thoroughly,  and  to  cast  them- 
selves on  Christ  more  entirely,  and  these  are  the 
two  great  lessons  which  we  need  to  learn  from 
experience ;  our  own  weakness  and  Christ's 
strength :  they  had  gained  new  proofs  of  the 
efficacy  of  a  Saviour's  blood,  as  well  as  new 
views,  and  a  deeper  sense,  of  the  dreadful  evil 
of  sin,  and  in  every  way  they  were  wiser,  though 
perhaps  sadder  men  than  before.  It  was  almost 
worth  those  fearful  days  and  nights  in  Giant  De- 
spair's Castle,  to  learn  so  much  more  both  of 
themselves  and  of  Christ ;  but  this  bringing  good 


AND    GIANT    DESPAIR.  413 

out  of  evil  was  God's  doing,  and  not  theirs  ;  they 
had  perished  in  their  sins,  had  not  God  had  mercy 
on  them. 

And  now  they  use,  as  all  Pilgrims  should  do, 
their  own  bitter  experience  for  good  to  others. 
They  mean  to  keep  others,  if  possible,  from 
falling  into  the  same  snare  with  themselves,  and 
so,  as  soon  as  they  are  got  safe  into  the  Lord's 
blessed  highway,  and  out  of  their  enemies'  ju- 
risdiction, they  proceed  to  nail  up  that  famous 
inscription,  Over  this  stile  lies  the  way  to  Doubt- 
ing Castle,  kept  by  Giant  Despair.  They 
thought,  forsooth,  that  no  Pilgrim  after  them, 
reading  this  inscription,  would  dare  go  out  of 
the  way.  But  by  a  strange  blindness,  which  hap- 
pens to  the  Pilgrims  whenever  they  are  bent  on 
self-indulgence,  they  are  so  taken  with  the  Mea- 
dow, that  they  do  not  read  the  inscription,  and  so 
they  pass  over  the  same  stile,  just  as  if  no  person 
had  ever  tried  it  before,  and  just  as  if  there  were 
no  Giant  Despair's  Castle.  Before  Christian  and 
Hopeful  passed  by,  there  had  been  just  such 
inscriptions,  but  the  Pilgrims  did  not  heed  them. 
King  David  himself,  who  spent  so  long  time  in 
the  Castle,  put  up  just  such  an  inscription,  near 
three  thousand  years  ago,  and  Solomon,  from 
bitter  experience,  renewed  it  after  him ;  but 
Christian  and  Hopeful  themselves  did  not  read 
it.  Nor  do  any  read  it,  except  the  Lord  en- 
lighten their  darkness,  and  make  them  vigilant 
at  the  very  moment  temptation  comes  upon  them. 
For  the  time  when  they  enter  into  temptation  is 
the  time  when  this  inscription  disappears,  and 


414  DOUBTING  CASTLE. 

when  they  are  once  entered  in  as  in  a  cloud,  they 
can  hear  nothing,  see  nothing,  but  the  temptation 
itself,  and  so  they  fall,  and  are  afterwards  made 
wretched.  May  the  Lord  keep  us  from  such 
dreadful  experience !  Oh  what  dread  meaning 
there  is  in  those  warnings  of  Christ,  Pray  that  ye 
enter  not  into  temptation.  Watch  and  pray,  lest  ye 
enter  into  temptation.  Entering  into  temptation  is 
a  very  different  thing  from  being  assailed  by  temp- 
tation ;  but  in  neither  case  can  we  conquer  or  be 
delivered  except  by  Christ. 

There  is  nothing  which  God  does,  that  he  does 
not  do  freely,  and  like  a  God.  When  he  pardons 
our  sins,  it  is  to  remember  them  no  more  forever  ; 
when  he  restores  to  us  the  joy  of  his  salvation,  his 
face  shines  upon  us  with  a  beatifying  love,  as  if 
we  had  never  offended  him.  Only  return  unto  me 
and  I  will  return  unto  you,  saith  the  Lord.  So,  we 
no  sooner  find  the  Pilgrims  got  out  of  the  Castle  of 
Giant  Despair,  and  their  inscription  over  the  stile 
finished,  but  we  meet  them  in  sweet  instructive 
company  on  the  top  of  the  Delectable  Mountains. 
So  great,  so  free,  so  abundant  is  God's  goodness  in 
Christ  in  the  pardon  of  the  penitent.  Yet  these 
mountains  were  not  attained  without  climbing ; 
none  arrive  at  them  but  by  much  holy  diligence 
in  the  pilgrimage ;  and  Christian  and  Hopeful 
never  walked  more  warily  and  prayerfully  than 
now  after  their  wonderful  escape  from  the  Castle  of 
Giant  Despair. 

Here  were  gardens,  orchards,  vineyards,  and 
fountains  of  living  water,  to  reward  their  diligence 
and  refresh  their  spirits.  Here  were  Shepherds  of 


4 
AND    GIANT   DESPAIR.  415 

Christ,  appointed  to  feed  and  keep  his  flock  on 
these  mountains,  precious,  holy  men,  named 
Knowledge,  Experience,  Watchful  and  Sincere, 
who  took  the  Pilgrims  by  the  hand,  instructed  them 
by  their  conversation,  and  led  them  about  to  show 
them  the  wonders  of  these  mountains,  just  as  the 
good  Interpreter  had  shown  them  the  rarities  in  his 
house.  They  were  shown  where  many  men  were 
dashed  in  pieces  by  carelessly  climbing  the  Hill 
of  Error,  and  falling  in  the  midst  of  its  specula- 
tions. They  were  shown  from  the  top  of  another 
mountain,  called  Caution,  a  number  of  blind  men 
wandering  and  stumbling  across  tombs ;  and  the 
Shepherds,  little  knowing  or  imagining  the  late 
fearful  experience  of  the  Pilgrims  in  Doubting 
Castle,  informed  them  that  these  were  men,  who 
had  had  their  eyes  put  out  by  Giant  Despair,  and 
were  there  by  him  thrown  among  these  dark 
tombs ;  according  to  the  saying  of  Scripture,  He 
that  wandereth  out  of  the  way  of  understanding, 
shall  remain  in  the  Congregation  of  the  Dead. 

Oh,  thought  Christian  and  Hopeful,  why  were  not 
we  also  left  to  such  a  dreadful  fate  !  Who  hath 
made  us  to  differ?  What  mercy  of  God  that  he 
did  not  leave  us  also  to  be  blinded  and  destroyed  ! 
They  said  not  a  word  to  the  Shepherds,  but  looked 
on  one  another  with  a  look  that  spoke  volumes, 
and  the  tears  gushed  out.  So,  how  many  hair- 
breadth escapes  have  we  all  had  amidst  our  sins, 
where  others  have  stumbled  and  fallen  to  rise  no 
more !  What  thankfulness  should  the  remembrance 
of  these  mercies  excite  in  us. 

The  good  Shepherds  also  took  the  Pilgrims  to 
54 


416  DOUBTING    CASTLE 

the  top  of  the  Hill  Clear,  from  whence  they  could, 
in  a  fine  day,  see  the  Celestial  City,  through  the 
telescope  which  the  Shepherds  kept  by  them.  This 
perspective  glass  is  Faith,  but  the  Pilgrims  have 
not  always  equal  skill  in  using  it.  However, 
they  managed  to  see  something  of  the  glory  of  the 
City,  and  that  vision,  imperfect  though  it  was,  was 
very  ravishing  to  their  spirits. 

We  journey  in  a  vale  of  tears ; 

But  often  from  on  high 
The  glorious  bow  of  God  appears, 

And  lights  up  all  our  sky. 
Then  through  the  breaking  clouds  of  heaven 

Far  distant  visions  come, 
And  sweetest  words  of  grace  are  given, 

To  cheer  the  Pilgrim  home. 

Then  doubt  and  darkness  flee  away, 

And  shadows  all  are  gone : — 
Oh  !  if  such  moments  would  but  stay, 

This  earth  ancWieaven  were  one. 
Too  soon  the  vision  is  withdrawn ; 

There's  only  left,  "  He  saith ;" 
And  I,  a  lonely  Pilgrim,  turn, 

To  live  and  walk  by  Faith. 

Yet  e'en  for  glimpses  such  as  these 

My  soul  would  cheerful  bear 
All  that  in  darkest  days  it  sees, 

The  toil,  the  pain,  the  care. 
For  through  the  conflict  and  the  race, 

Whatever  grief  my  lot, 
If  Jesus  shows  his  lovely  face, 

All  troubles  are  forgot. 

My  quickened  soul,  in  faith  and  love, 

Mounts  up  on  eagles'  wings, 
And  at  the  City  Gates  above 

Exulting  sits  and  sings ! 
Tis  through  thy  sufferings,  O  my  Lord, 

I  hope  that  world  to  see, 
And  through  those  gates,  at  thy  sweet  word, 
To  enter  in  to  Thee! 


AND    GIANT    DESPAIR.  417 

After  going  through  the  conflict  with  Apollyon, 
the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death,  the  scenes  in 
Vanity  Fair,  and  the  dread  experience  of  the  Pil- 
grims in  Giant  Despair's  Castle,  it  is  well  to  note 
what  a  Gallery  of  solemn  REALITIES  is  here,  what 
a  system  of  Divine  Truth,  commending  itself  to 
all  men's  consciences.  It  is  not  so  much  the 
richness  of  imagination,  nor  the  tenderness  of  feel- 
ing here  exhibited,  nor  the  sweetness  and  beauty  of 
the  imagery,  with  which  this  book  is  filled,  as  it  is 
the  presence  of  these  REALITIES,  that  constitutes 
the  secret  of  its  unbounded  power  over  the  soul. 

Walk  up  and  down  in  this  rich  and  solemn  Gal- 
lery. How  simple  are  its  ornaments  !  How  grave, 
yet  beautiful,  its  architecture  !  Amidst  all  this 
deep,  serene  beauty  to  the  imagination,  by  how 
much  deeper  a  tone  do  these  pictures  speak  to 
the  inner  spiritual  being  of  the  soul !  When  you 
have  admired  the  visible  beauty  of  the  paintings, 
turn  again  to  seek  their  meaning  in  that  light  from 
Eternity  by  which  the  Artist  painted  them,  and 
by  which  he  would  have  all  men  examine  their  les- 
sons, and  receive  and  feel  the  full  power  of  their 
coloring.  In  this  light  the  walls  of  this  Gallery 
seem  moving  with  celestial  figures  speaking  to 
the  soul.  They  are  acting  the  Drama  of  a  Life, 
which  by  most  men  is  only  dreamed  of;  but  the 
Drama  is  the  Reality,  and  it  is  the  spectators  only, 
who  are  walking  in  a  vain  show. 

The  Pilgrim's  Progress  shows  an  immortal  being 
journeying  in  the  light,  and  under  the  transform- 
ing power  of  these  Realities.  They  are  such  ever- 
present  truths,  that  you  cannot  read  this  work, 


418      DOUBTING    CASTLE    AND    GIANT    DESPAIR. 

without  discovering  them,  any  more  than  you  could 
read  aloud  the  pages  of  a  book,  without  pronouncing 
its  words  ;  any  more  than  one  could  travel  through 
a  magnificent  city,  and  not  behold  its  streets  and 
palaces  ;  any  more  than  one  could  look  at  the  rain- 
bow without  seeing  its  colors,  or  at  the  sun  without 
beholding  its  light.  It  is  by  the  power  of  these 
truths  that  the  Pilgrim's  Progress,  like  the  Sword 
of  the  Spirit,  which  is  the  Word  of  God,  proves  it- 
self a  discerner  of  the  thoughts  and  intents  of  the 
heart. 

The  whole  foundation  on  which  the  author  of  this 
work,  which  of  all  other  books  stands  the  nearest 
after  the  Bible  to  the  overpowering  light  of  Eternity, 
has  built  the  structure  of  its  Realities,  is  his  view, 
(taken  from  the  Bible  and  the  Spirit  of  God,)  of 
sin,  of  God,  of  Christ,  of  the  Eternal  World,  and 
of  the  relations  of  man,  as  a  fallen  being,  to  that 
world  and  to  his  Maker.  The  gloom  in  this  book,  if 
gloom  it  can  be  called,  where  the  light  of  the  Cross 
so  irradiates  it,  arises  from  the  immutable  dread  na- 
ture of  sin,  and  not  from  any  dark  views  of  the 
Gospel,  it  is  not  a  gloomy  book  ;  no  man  ever 
thought  of  bringing  against  it  such  an  accusation  ; 
it  is  one  of  the  most  cheerful  books  in  the  language. 
And  yet  it  is  a  solemn  array  of  the  Realities  of  spiri- 
tual Truth.  The  way  of  our  pilgrimage  is  from 
gloom  to  grace  and  glory;  gloom  at  first,  but  after- 
wards glory  everlasting  ;  but  they  who  will  reject 
the  element  of  gloom  from  their  theology  in  this 
world  are  not  likely  to  have  the  element  of  glory 
spring  from  it  hereafter. 


THE 

DELECTABLE    MOUNTAINS, 

AND 

ENCHANTED  GROUND, 

WITH    THE 

CHARACTERS  OF  IGNORANCE  AND  LITTLE-FAITH 


View  of  the  Celestial  City. — The  importance  of  such  visions  on  our  pilgrimage.— 
Character  of  Ignorance. — False  views  of  justification. — Denial  of  the  doctrine  of 
Justification  by  Faith. — Salvation  by  our  own  merits  in  any  way  impossible. — 
Christ,  a  whole  Saviour  or  none  at  all. — To  say  that  a  man  is  saved  by  his  works 
is  just  the  same  as  to  say  that  he  is  saved  by  his  sins. — Character  of  Little-Faith. — 
The  Enchanted  Ground  and  the  Flatterer. — The  delusions  of  self-righteousness. — 
The  religious  experience  of  Hopeful. — The  renewed  heart  a  mirror  of  Divine  Truth 

ON  the  Delectable  Mountains,  the  Pilgrims  had 
a  sight  of  the  Celestial  City.  No  matter  if  it  was 
but  a  glimpse,  still  they  saw  it,  they  really  saw  it, 
and  the  remembrance  of  that  sight  never  left  them. 
There  it  was  in  glory !  Their  hands  trembled,  their 
eyes  were  dim  with  tears,  but  still  that  vision  was 
not  to  be  mistaken.  There,  through  the  rifted 
clouds  for  a  moment,  the  gates  of  pearl  were  shin- 
ing, the  jasper  walls,  the  endless  domes,  the  jew- 
elled battlements  !  The  splendor  of  the  city 
seemed  to  pour,  like  a  river  of  light,  down  upon 
54 


420  THE    DELECTABLE    MOUNTAINS, 

the  spot  where  they  were  standing.  We  may  adopt 
the  imagery  of  the  Poet  Wordsworth,  attempting 
to  convey  the  idea  of  a  material  vision  which  he 
beheld  in  the  clouds  after  a  storm,  in  order  to 
shadow  forth  something  of  that  glory  which  might 
have  been  seen  from  the  summit  of  the  Delectable 
Mountains. 

Glory  beyond  all  glory  ever  seen 
By  waking  sense,  or  by  the  dreaming  soul ! 
The  appearance,  instantaneously  disclosed, 
Was  of  a  Mighty  City, — boldly  say 
A  Wilderness  of  building,  sinking  far, 
And  self- withdrawn  into  a  wondrous  depth, 
Far  sinking  into  splendor  without  end  ! 
Fabric  it  seemed  of  diamond  and  of  Gold, 
With  alabaster  domes  and  silver  spires, 
And  blazing  terrace  upon  terrace,  high 
Uplifted  :  here,  serene  pavilions  bright, 
In  avenues  disposed;  there, towers  begirt 
With  battlements,  that  on  their  restless  fronts 
Bore  stars — illumination  of  all  gems ! 

\  Now  this  sight  did  ravish  the  hearts  of  the  Pilgrims, 
though  they  could  not  look  steadily  through  the 
glass.  Sometimes  this  vision  is  revealed  to  Pil- 
grims much  more  clearly  than  at  other  times  ;  but 
no  language  can  describe  the  glory  of  the  vision, 
whenever  and  however  it  is  manifested  to  the  soul ; 
for  eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  neither  hath  it 
entered  into  the  heart  of  man  to  conceive  the  things 
which  God  hath  prepared  for  them  that  love  him. 
But  God  reveals  them  by  his  Spirit,  and  sometimes 
doubtless  with  such  a  revelation  as  language  can- 
not compass. 

Much  depends  upon  the  weather  in  our  soul's 
horizon.  Sometimes,  even  when  ascending  the 
Delectable  Mountains,  the  Pilgrims  are  enveloped 


AND  ENCHANTED  GROUND.        421 

in  fog  all  the  way  up.  They  climb,  and  turn  to  see 
the  prospect,  but  can  see  nothing ;  it  is  like 
ascending  the  Alps  on  a  misty  day.  But  still  they 
climb.  And  now,  all  unexpectedly  and  suddenly, 
they  rise  out  of  the  cloud  and  beyond  it ; — the  Sun 
is  shining,  the  mountains  are  flashing  like  pure  ala- 
baster ; — they  seem  to  have  angels'  wings,  they 
come  to  the  Hill  Clear,  the  Celestial  City  breaks 
upon  them.  Ah,  how  glorious,  how  merciful  is 
such  a  vision  !  Worth  all  the  climbing,  all  the 
fatigue,  all  the  mist,  rain  and  darkness.  Now 
the  soul  can  go  on  its  way  rejoicing  ;  now  it  can  say 
to  Atheist,  What?  No  Celestial  City?  Did  I 
not  see  it  from  the  Delectable  Mountains  ?  Shall 
not  my  soul  remember  thee,  O  God,  and  the 
sweet  glimpses  of  thy  glory  which  thou  hast  caused 
to  pass  before  me  ?  Yea,  my  soul  followeth  hard 
after  Thee,  and  thy  right  hand  upholdeth  me  ;  and 
as  long  as  I  live  will  I  praise  the  Lord  for  his  good- 
ness, and  pant  for  his  abode. 

Jerusalem !  Jerusalem ! 
Name  ever  dear  to  me  ! 

Such  glimpses  of  Heaven,  though  they  be 
but  glimpses,  are  inexpressibly  blessed  and  sus- 
taining in  our  pilgrimage.  They  help  to  wean  the 
affections  from  earth,  they  strengthen  us  against 
temptations,  they  make  us  see  in  the  most  striking 
light,  the  emptiness  and  vanity  of  the  things  of  the 
world,  and  the  folly  and  sinfulness  of  the  love  of 
the  world  ;  they  make  us  feel,  while  confined  to  the 
world,  what  shadows  we  are,  and  what  shadows  we 
pursue  ;  they  make  trials  also  seem  very  small  and 


422  THE    DELECTABLE    MOUNTAINS', 

transitory,  and  easy  to  be  borne.  Moreover,  they 
quicken  the  heart  after  God  ;  for  the  renewed 
heart  well  knows  that  God  is  the  glory  of  that 
City,  for  the  Lord  God  Almighty  and  the  Lamb 
are  the  temple  of  it ;  and  it  has  no  need  of  the 
sun,  neither  of  the  moon  to  shine  in  it ;  for  the 
glory  of  God  doth  lighten  it,  and  the  Lamb  is 
the  light  thereof.  When  the  heart  is  filled  and 
purified  with  such  desires  after  heaven,  as  in 
Paul's  case,  then  it  doth  desire  to  depart  and 
to  be  with  Christ ;  it  would  lay  by  these  gar- 
ments of  mortality,  that  it  may  put  on  Christ,  and 
be  clothed  upon  with  our  house  which  is  from 
heaven.  Sometimes,  when  God,  by  his  grace, 
puts  the  heart  in  such  a  holy  frame,  discloses  so 
much  of  himself  in  Christ  to  it,  every  day  is 
counted,  as  it  passes,  for  joy,  as  a  step  nearer 
heaven ;  so  that  Death  seems  no  longer  the  King 
of  Terrors,  but  the  Angel  of  a  Father's  love  ; 
and  the  day  when  he  comes,  is  the  Christian's 
BIRTH-DAY  OF  ETERNITY.  So  Time  itself,  the 
most  fleeting  of  all  things,  seems  sometimes  long, 
because  it  separates  the  soul  from  the  Saviour  ! 

For  this  it  is  makes  life  so  long, 
While  it  detains  us  from  our  God : 
E'en  pleasures  here  increase  the  wrong, 
And  length  of  days  lengthens  the  rod. 

Who  wants  the  place  where  God  doth  dwell, 

Partakes  already  half  of  hell. 

HERBERT. 

O  how  desirable  is  such  a  frame  !  But  the 
Pilgrims  are  not  always  in  it ;  so  Christian  and 
Hopeful  must  go  down  from  the  Delectable  Moun- 
tains, und  be  on  the  comman  way  of  their  pilgrim- 


AND  ENCHANTED  GROUND,         423 

age ;  for  these  happy  experiences  and  visions  of 
heaven  are  given,  as  I  said,  not  to  constitute  our 
rest,  but  to  make  us  long  after  it,  to  make  us  wil- 
ling to  endure  hardships  as  good  soldiers  of  Jesus 
Christ.  The  Crown  of  Life  is  after  Death,  and  no 
man  can  be  crowned,  till,  through  Christ,  he  has 
gained  the  victory.  The  Lord,  in  mercy,  grant 
us  that  grace,  that  we,  through  him,  may  gain 
that  victory,  being  made  faithful  unto  death  ! 

The  Pilgrims  must  go  on,  and  though  they 
have  been  where  they  could  see  the  Celestial  City, 
yet  there  are  dangers  and  labors  still  to  go  through, 
and  no  chariot,  nor  bright  cloud,  nor  way 
through  the  air,  to  convey  them  insensibly,  or 
without  fatigue  to  heaven.  So  they  bade  the  kind 
Shepherds  a  loving  farewell.  Methinks,  after  al! 
their  past  experiences  and  visions,  they  breathed, 
as  they  went,  the  very  spirit  of  those  sweet  verses 
of  Baxter,  in  which  he  poured  forth,  with  such 
simplicity,  the  breathings  of  his  soul  after  heaven, 
and  the  quiet  spirit  of  resignation  to  God's  will. 

Lord,  it  belongs  not  to  my  care, 

Whether  I  die  or  live  ; 
To  love  and  serve  thee  is  my  share, 

And  this  thy  grace  must  give. 
If  life  be  long,  I  will  be  glad, 

That  I  may  long  obey : 
If  short,  yet  why  should  I  be  sad, 

That  shall  have  the  same  pay  ? 


Christ  leads  me  through  no  darker  rooms, 

Than  he  went  through  before  ; 
He  that  into  God's  kingdom  comes, 

Must  enter  by  this  door. 
Come,  Lord,  when  grace  hath  made  me  meet 

Thy  blessed  face  to  see ; 
For  if  thy  work  on  earth  be  sweet, 

What  will  thy  glory  be ! 


424  THE   CHARACTERS    OP 

Then  I  shall  end  ray  sad  complaints, 

And  weary  sinful  days ; 
And  join  with  the  triumphant  saints, 

That  sing  Jehovah's  praise. 
My  knowledge  of  that  life  is  small, 

The  eye  of  faith  is  dim ; 
But  'tis  enough  that  Christ  knows  all, 

And  I  shall  be  with  him! 


After  the  Pilgrims  are  set  out  from  the  Delec- 
table Mountains,  there  pass  before  us  a  succession 
of  scenes  of  great  beauty,  and  characters  of 
great  interest,  mingled  with  so  much  instructive 
and  delightful  conversation  by  the  way,  that  it 
is  a  good  type  of  that  growth  in  grace  and  that 
heavenly  wisdom,  which  should  more  and  more 
mark  the  Pilgrims,  the  nearer  they  come  to  the 
Celestial  City.  The  first  character  we  meet  is 
that  of  Ignorance,  from  the  town  of  Conceit ;  then 
Little-Faith  passes  before  us  with  his  story  ;  then 
the  character  of  Great-Grace.  Next  comes  the 
Flatterer,  then  the  Atheist,  then  the  Enchanted 
Ground,  and  Hopeful's  instructive  relation  of  his 
religious  experience,  then  the  farther  development 
of  the  character  of  Ignorance,  then  the  course  of 
an  apostate.  Next  comes  the  picture  of  the  land 
Beulah,  and  last  of  all,  the  river  of  Death  and  the 
Celestial  City. 

Ignorance  was  a  very  brisk  lad,  that  came  out 
of  the  country,  and  was  going  to  enter  heaven 
"  as  other  good  people  do,"  by  his  goodness  and 
not  by  Christ.  He  was  a  man  of  morality,  a  payer 
of  his  debts,  a  faster,  a  tithe -payer,  an  alms- 
giver  ;  and  to  this  catalogue  of  his  worthy  quali- 
ties, by  which  he  was  to  be  received  in  at  the 
Gate,  he  also  added  that  he  had  left  his  own 


IGNORANCE    AND    LITTLE-FAITH.  425 

country  for  whither  he  was  going.  Here  then,  was 
a  Professor  of  religion,  who  meant  to  oe  saved  by 
his  own  merits,  and  yet  deemed  himself  to  have 
forsaken  all  for  Christ,  at  least  to  have  left  his 
native  country  of  Conceit.  But  he  had  still, 
unknown  to  himself,  all  the  manners  and  feel- 
ings of  his  native  land,  and  though  he  seemed 
to  himself  to  be  travelling  towards  the  Celestial 
City,  yet  he  was  a  stranger  both  to  himself  and  to 
Christ,  and  of  course  had  never  entered  by  the 
Wicket  Gate,  and  was  destitute  of  Christian's  roll 
of  assurance.  How  many  professed  followers 
of  Christ  there  may  be,  who  are  entirely  ignorant 
of  their  own  depraved  nature,  and  of  their  need 
of  a  Saviour's  righteousness,  we  cannot  tell,  but 
we  are  all  natives  of  this  country  of  Conceit ;  and 
if  we  expect  to  attain  salvation  by  our  own  works, 
prayers,  fastings,  merits  in  any  way,  and  not  by 
the  all-sufficing  merits,  the  all-atoning  sacrifice, 
and  the  all-renewing  grace  of  Christ,  we  are  ut- 
terly ignorant  of  what  be  the  very  first  principles 
of  the  Cross  of  Christ.  Where  there  is  this 
ignorance  of  the  Cross,  there  is  very  likely  to  be 
enmity  against  it,  or  a  light  esteem  of  it.  So 
Mr.  Ignorance  did  not  think  that  there  were  "  any 
men  in  all  our  parts  who  knew  the  way  to  the 
Wicket  Gate,"  and  for  his  part,  he  did  not  think 
there  were  any  need  of  knowing  it,  since  there 
was  a  much  nearer  way. 

So  Ignorance  ana  the  Pilgrims  parted  for  a 
season,  but  afterwards  they  renewed  their  con- 
versation, and  Ignorance  gave  the  Pilgrims  to 
know  more  particularly  what  were  some  of  the 


426  THE    CHARATERS    OF 

grounds  of  his  own  assurance  in  regard  to  his 
good  estate.  The  main  thing  seemed  to  be  his 
comfortable  hopes  of  heaven,  and  the  good  things 
that  his  own  heart  was  telling  him  about  him- 
self. He  seems  never  to  have  known  the  des- 
parate  wickedness  of  his  own  heart,  nor  to  have 
thought  of  distrusting  it ;  and  when  good  Chris- 
dan  explained  to  him  that  by  the  judgment  of  the 
Word  of  God  the  heart  is  naturally  altogether  sin- 
ful, then  did  Ignorance  break  out  with  this  speech, 
saying,  I  will  never  believe  that  my  heart  is  thus 
bad.  Therefore,  said  Christian,  thou  never  hadst 
one  good  thought  concerning  thyself  in  thy  life. 

This  good  opinion  of  Ignorance  concerning  him- 
self was  a  radical,  blinding  evil,  a  great  delusion, 
as  it  is  with  many  professed  Pilgrims ;  for,  not 
seeing  his  own  desperate  sinfulness,  of  course  he 
saw  not  his  need  of  Christ  as  a  Saviour,  and  had 
never  fled  to  him,  nor  known  what  it  was  to  rely 
upon  him  for  mercy.  Yet,  he  spake  of  Christ, 
and  expected  to  be  saved  only  by  him,  but  it  was 
in  such  a  way  as  if  Christ  died  to  give  to  the  sin- 
ner's own  works  a  saving  efficacy. 

The  case  of  Ignorance  shows  that  there  must  be 
deep  conviction,  knowledge,  and  hatred  of  one's  own 
guilt,  to  make  one  fully  see,  feel  and  know  the  pre- 
eiousness  of  Christ,  and  then  indeed  the  soul  rests 
apon  him  ;  but  it  cannot  rest  upon  him  and  upon 
;is  own  works  or  merits  together.  Christ  will  be 
•in  only  Saviour,  or  none  at  all.  But  there  are 
*nany,  who,  like  Ignorance,  profess  to  rest  upon 
Christ,  but  make  him  only  half  their  Saviour,  rely- 
ing on  their  own  holiness  also  for  acceptance  before 


IGNORANCE    AND    LITTLE-FAITH.  427 

God.  This  is  a  very  dangerous  error,  as  in  the 
instance  of  Ignorance,  for  it  proceeds  from  Self- 
conceit,  and  even  while  under  its  influence  men 
still  think  that  they  hold  to  the  fundamental  doctrine 
of  Justification  by  Faith. 

This  was  the  case  with  Ignorance,  yet  his  de- 
scription of  Faith  would  sound  very  plausible  to 
many  minds.  I  believe,  said  he,  that  Christ  died 
for  sinners,  and  that  I  shall  be  justified  before  God 
from  the  curse,  through  his  gracious  acceptance  of 
my  obedience  to  the  law.  Or  thus,  Christ  makes 
my  duties,  that  are  religious,  acceptable  to  his  Fa- 
ther, by  virtue  of  his  merits,  and  so  I  shall  be  justi- 
fied. Now  this  faith  was  truly,  as  Christian  said,  a 
fantastical,  false,  deceitful,  faith,  no  where  de- 
scribed in  the  Word  of  God,  although,  having  a 
great  show  of  scriptural  truth,  it  was  wonderfully 
adapted  to  mislead  and  delude  the  simple  and 
ignorant. 

But  who  does  not  see  that  such  a  faith  as  this 
makes  Christ  not  a  Saviour  of  ourselves,  but  of  our 
duties ;  it  makes  Christ  die  in  order  to  constitute 
for  us  a  self-righteousness,  in  order  to  make  what 
we  do  the  ground  of  our  salvation  But  Christ  him- 
self is  our  salvation,  or  we  have  none  at  all.  He 
himself,  and  not  our  duties  for  his  sake,  is  our  wis- 
dom, righteousness,  sanctification,  and  redemption. 
He  died  to  save  our  souls,  and  not  to  save  our 
righteousness,  nor  to  make  our  obedience  fit  for  us 
to  rest  upon  for  salvation,  for  it  never  can  be  fit, 
but  always  needs  to  be  forgiven.  But  this  faith  of 
Ignorance  would  make  Christ  a  justifier  not  of  the 
believer,  but  of  his  actions,  and  a  justifier  and  Sa- 
55 


428  THE    CHARATERS    OF 

viour  of  the  believer  for  the  sake  of  his  actions  ! 
That  is,  it  makes  Christ  die  for  the  justification  of 
the  believer's  duties,  which  thus,  it  is  pretended, 
become  merits,  and  may  be  presented,  through 
Christ,  to  God,  as  the  purchase  of  salvation ! 

Now,  when  Christian  explained  the  real  nature  of 
justifying  faith  in  Christ,  as  relying  solely  upon 
him  and  his  merits,  the  self-righteousness  of  Igno- 
rance cried  out  against  it.  What,  said  he,  would 
you  have  us  trust  to  what  Christ  in  his  own  person 
hath  done  without  us  1  This  conceit  would  loosen 
the  reins  of  our  lusts,  and  tolerate  us  to  live  as 
we  list ;  for  what  matter  how  we  live,  if  we  may  be 
justified  by  Christ's  personal  righteousness  from  all 
sin,  when  we  believe  it  1  This  was  the  common 
outcry  and  reproach  of  Antinomianism  thrown 
against  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith,  on  the 
part  of  those  who  reject  it.  Ignorance  was  equally 
prejudiced  against  the  declaration  of  Christian  from 
the  Bible,  that  no  man  can  know  Jesus  Christ  but 
by  revelation  from  the  Father  ;  and  this  was  simply 
the  common  unwillingness  of  our  proud  hearts  to 
admit  such  truth  as  throws  us  entirely  on  the 
sovereignty  and  mere  good  pleasure  of  God. 

The  idea  of  justification  by  works,  in  any  way, 
when  we  look  at  our  own  depravity,  must  appear 
to  every  sound  mind  as  irrational  as  it  is  unscrip- 
tural.  The  best  works,  performed  by  the  best 
man,  are  imperfect  and  mingled  with  sin,  and 
therefore  need  to  be  forgiven  ;  so  that  to  say  that  a 
man  is  justified  by  his  works  is  no  better  than  say- 
ing that  a  man  is  justified  by  his  sins  ;  and  how 
great  an  absurdity  this  is,  there  is  no  man  who  will 


IGNORANCE   AND    LITTLE-FAITH.  429 

not  acknowledge.  Every  true  Christian  deeply 
feels  that  the  best  duties  he  ever  performed,  the 
best  services  he  ever  offered  to  God,  the  most  un- 
mingled  spiritual  sacrifices  he  ever  laid  upon  the 
altar  of  a  Saviour's  love,  need  to  be  sprinkled  with 
a  Saviour's  blood,  and  cannot  otherwise  be  ac- 
cepted of  God.  How  then  can  he,  in  any  sense 
whatever,  be  justified  by  his  works,  seeing  that  his 
works  themselves  need  to  be  forgiven  ?  The  ut- 
most that  his  best  works  can  do  is  to  prove  the  ex- 
istence, in  manifesting  the  fruits,  of  that  saving 
faith,  through  which  the  soul  is  united  to  Christ, 
and  by  his  blood  justified  ;  but  if  our  works  all  par- 
take of  sin,  then,  so  far  from  being  in  any  sense 
justified  by  works,  we  are  condemned  by  them, 
and  without  other  justification  must  perish  ever- 
lastingly. 

In  this  view  what  can  be  more  offensive  to  a 
believer  in  Christ  than  that  spurious  mixture  of 
faith  and  works  as  a  reliance  for  justification,  which 
in  our  day  is  so  common,  but  which  robs  the  Sa- 
viour of  his  glory,  and  the  atonement  of  its  efficacy, 
and  which,  so  far  from  excluding  boasting,  pro- 
duces pride,  and  sustains  the  most  subtle  and  de- 
structive form  of  self-righteousness.  Justification 
by  faith  is  a  precious  doctrine,  because  it  exalts 
the  Saviour  and  cuts  up  human  pride.  Justification 
by  works  is  an  abominable,  Popish  perversion  of 
the  Gospel,  which,  whether  in  the  form  of  penances 
or  prayers,  ministers  to  human  pride,  lays  another 
foundation  than  that  which  Christ  hath  laid,  intro- 
duces another  Saviour,  and  so  provides  for  the  ruin 
and  not  the  redemption  of  the  soul.  A  church  may 


430  THE    CHARACTERS    OF 

have  Justification  by  Faith  among  its  articles,  and 
yet  may  go  over  upon  Popish  ground  in  justifica- 
tion by  forms  and  works,  and  so  may  desert  and 
betray  this  fundamental  living  truth  of  Christ.  And 
many  a  man,  like  Ignorance,  unacquainted  with  his 
own  heart,  and  with  Christ  as  his  Physician,  may 
be  taken  unawares  by  a  show  of  scriptural  truth, 
arid  instead  of  really  building  on  the  Rock  Christ 
Jesus,  may  be  led  to  build  his  house  upon  the  sand. 
One  of  the  most  subtle  poisons  of  the  age  is  the 
doctrine  of  human  merit,  which,  like  a  cloud  from 
the  bottomless  pit,  or  thick  vapor  from  the  caves 
of  Antichrist,  darkens  the  Gospel,  and  sends  the 
soul  wandering  in  the  mazes  of  pride  and  error. 
Christ  is  oiir  Saviour,  and  not  our  works  ;  Christ 
alone,  and  not  works  in  any  sense  ;  Christ  must  be 
all,  and  in  all,  or  we  have  no  Saviour  ;  wherefore, 
let  us  be  sure  that  we  rest  on  him,  for  no  righteous- 
ness can  save  us  but  his,  nor  is  there  any  thing  but 
his  blood  that  can  cleanse  the  soul  from  sin. 


Since  the  dear  hour  that  brought  me  to  Thy  foot, 
And  cut  up  all  my  follies  by  the  root, 
I  never  trusted  in  an  arm  but  Thine, 
Nor  hoped,  but  in  Thy  Righteousness  Divine. 
My  prayers  and  alms,  imperfect  and  defiled, 
Were  but  the  feeble  efforts  of  a  child. 
Howe'er  performed,  it  was  their  brightest  part 
That  they  proceeded  from  a  grateful  heart. 
Cleansed  in  thine  own  all-purifying  blood, 
Forgive  their  evil,  and  accept  their  good. 
I  cast  them  at  Thy  feet — my  only  plea 
Is  what  it  was,  DEPENDENCE  UPON  THEE  ! 

COWPKR. 

The  character  of  Ignorance  is  a  type  of  many, 
who,  having  never  been  truly  convinced  of  sin,  re- 
main unconscious  of  the  desperate  wickedness  of 


IGNORANCE    AND     LITTLE-FAITH.  431 

their  own  hearts,  and  of  their  utter  helplessness  in 
themselves  as  to  salvation.  As  Hopeful  said  of 
him,  there  are  abundance  of  such  as  he  in  our 
town,  whole  families,  yea,  whole  streets,  and  that 
of  Pilgrims  too;  and  if  there  be  so  many  in  our 
parts,  how  many,  think  you,  must  there  be  in  the 
place  where  he  was  born.  Something  like  his  was 
the  character  of  Temporary,  who  was  awakened 
once,  and  resolved  to  go  on  a  pilgrimage,  but  sud- 
denly becoming  acquainted  with  one  Save-self,  he 
gave  up  the  labor  of  it.  This  is  what  a  great  many 
persons  do  ;  instead  of  despairing  in  themselves, 
and  going  to  Christ  alone  to  save  them,  they  go  to 
duties  and  pretended  merits  of  their  own,  and 
when  they  do  this,  then  farewell  to  Christ  and 
his  righteousness,  and  so,  in  reality,  farewell  to 
the  hope  of  heaven. 

This  spirit  of  self-righteousness  is  a  fearful  de- 
lusion and  snare  to  many  on  first  setting  out  in  this 
pilgrimage.  It  seems  to  be  the  most  difficult  thing 
in  the  world  for  the  heart  to  come  to  Christ  just  as 
it  is,  wholly  bankrupt,  and  to  receive  Christ,  and  to 
understand  him,  and  to  rest  upon  him,  just  as  he 
is,  our  only,  all-sufficient  Saviour.  It  is  the  most 
difficult  thing  to  come  and  buy  the  wine  and  milk 
of  the  Gospel  without  price  ;  the  sinner  thinks  he 
must  bring  something  in  his  hand  to  purchase  with, 
some  duties,  some  merits,  prayers  at  least,  if  no- 
thing else,  to  buy  forgiveness.  And  in  truth  the 
act  of  resting  on  Christ  is  taught  only  of  God  ;  a 
right  appreciation  and  reception  of  Christ  comes 
only  from  God's  Spirit.  So  it  is  made  for  us  the 
greatest,  most  important  of  all  prayers,  that  the  God 


432  THE    CHARACTERS    OF 

of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  Father  of  glory, 
would  give  unto  us  the  spirit  of  wisdom  and  reve- 
lation in  the  knowledge  of  HIM.  Without  this 
revelation  of  Jesus  to  the  soul  as  a  Saviour,  a 
man  may  ta*lk  ever  so  devoutly  of  the  cross  of 
Christ,  and  yet  be  a  mere  Save-self  after  all.  Re- 
demption made  easy,  or  every  man  his  own  Sa- 
viour, was  a  label  which  Mr.  Coleridge,  with  great 
justness  and  severity  of  satire,  once  wrote  over  a 
collection  of  Socinian  Tracts ;  but  in  our  day  the 
doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  seems  to  be  aban- 
doned not  only  by  those  who  deny  the  atonement 
and  divinity  of  Christ,  but  by  many  who  make  a 
boast  of  those  doctrines.  Their  theology  is  such  a 
mixture  of  self-righteous  morality,  with  something 
like  the  Gospel  plan  of  salvation,  as  effectually  de- 
stroys the  saving  efficacy  of  the  Gospel,  and  yet 
satisfies  the  soul  with  the  pretence  and  form  of 
it.  They  make  Christ  a  mere  endorser  on  the 
ground  of  his  own  death,  of  the  bill  of  merits, 
which  the  sinner  presents  on  the  ground  of  his  own 
morality ;  they  make  Christ  merely  a  helper,  and 
not  a  Saviour.  But  the  Gospel  must  be  every 
thing  or  nothing,  and  he  that  comes  to  Christ  think- 
eth  that  he  only  needs  him  to  make  up  his  own  de- 
ficiencies, does  not  believe  in  him  as  a  Saviour  at 
all,  does  not  come  to  him  as  such. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  not  merely  Ignorance  who  is 
pleased  with  the  delusions  of  self- righteousness  ; 
but  real  disciples  sometimes,  who  think  them- 
selves rooted  and  grounded  in  faith  and  love,  are 
led  away  by  the  same  temptations.  This  the 
Pilgrims  found  to  their  cost,  when  they  encountered 


IGNORANCE    AND    LITTLE-FAITH.  433 

the  Flatterer,  by  whom  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  Bunyan  intended  to  represent  another  enemy 
of  justication  by  faith,  under  the  guise  of  spiritual 
pride,  a  good  opinion  of  themselves,  and  a  reliance 
for  salvation  upon  their  own  duties  and  degree  of 
advancement  in  the  spiritual  life.  This  Flatterer 
led  them  in  a  way  so  like  the  right  way  at  first, 
that  they  thought  it  was  the  right  way,  but  so 
adroitly  and  insensibly  did  he  deceive  them,  that 
at  length  their  faces  were  turned  from,  instead  of 
towards,  the  Celestial  City,  and  then  the  white  robe 
fell  from  his  back,  and  disclosed  his  native  black- 
ness and  deformity.  Then  also  he  threw  a  strong 
net  over  them,  and  left  them  to  struggle  in  it, 
unable  to  get  out.  By  such  difficulties  do  men 
always  become  entangled,  who  leave  the  way  of 
simple  reliance  on  Christ  and  his  righteousness. 

There  is  also  in  our  day  a  flattering  delusion, 
by  which  this  black  man  in  white  may  be  repre- 
sented, which  is  the  doctrine  of  perfection  attained 
by  saints  in  this  world,  which  doctrine,  by  its  fos- 
tering of  pride  and  self-righteousness,  has  set 
many  a  man  with  his  face  from  instead  of  towards 
the  Celestial  City.  A  man  eager  after  spiritual 
attainments  does  certainly  seem  to  be  in  the  high 
road  to  heaven ;  but  if  he  makes  those  attain- 
ments, instead  of  Christ,  his  Saviour,  then  cer- 
tainly his  face  is  turned,  and  his  feet  are  tending 
the  other  way.  So  we  need  to  be  upon  our  watch 
against  any  thing  and  every  thing,  though  it  should 
come  to  us  in  the  shape  of  an  angel  of  light, 
which  would  turn  us  from  a  sole  reliance  upon 

Christ,  or  tempt  us  to  a  high  opinion  of  ourselves. 

• 


434  THE    CHARACTERS    OF 

A  broken  heart  and  a  contrite  spirit  are,  in  tho 
sight  of  God  of  great  price,  but  if  any  man  think£ 
himself  to  have  attained  perfection,  he  is  not  very 
likely  to  be  in  the  exercise  of  a  broken  heart  or  of 
a  contrite  spirit,  nor  indeed  in  the  exercise  of  true 
faith  in  Christ  for  justification. 

You  will  observe  that  this  Flatterer,  robed  in 
white,  pretending  to  great  strictness,  spirituality 
and  holiness,  carried  the  Pilgrims  seemingly  on- 
wards towards  the  Celestial  City,  but  left  them 
vith  their  faces  direct  from  Zion,  instead  of  hea- 
'enward.  Now  this  has  been  the  case  with  so 
many  persons,  who  have  at  first  professed  to  have 
attained  perfection,  and  believed  that  they  sought 
it,  that  it  would  seem  as  if  Bunyan  must  have  had 
in  his  eye  the  very  error  we  are  contemplating. 
From  the  belief  in  one's  own  perfection,  it  is 
often  but  a  single  step  to  the  monstrous  coticlu- 
sion  that  the  soul  cannot  sin,  that  whatever  the 
body  does,  the  soul  cannot  be  defiled  thereby,  or 
made  guilty  ;  that  the  law  of  God  is  no  more  a 
rule  of  conduct,  and  that  its  commands  may  bo 
broken  at  pleasure  without  sin.  This  is  doubtless 
one  tendency  of  a  self-righteous  spirit.  They  who 
trust  simply  and  solely  in  Christ  and  his  righteous- 
ness for  salvation  have  often  been  accused  by  self- 
righteous  moralists,  of  "  making  void  the  law ;'  but 
in  point  of  fact,  it  is  they  only  who  establish  the 
law  ;  it  is  nothing  but  the  love  of  Christ,  and  Fuith 
in  his  merits,  in  his  blood,  that  ever  produces*  any 
morality  required  by  the  law.  On  the  other  hand, 
they  who  trust  in  their  own  merits,  and  the}  ho 
pretend  to  a  perfection  of  their  own,  are  always 


IGNORANCE    AND    LITTLE-FAITH.  435 

perverting,  and  so  making  void,  both  the  law  and 
the  Gospel,  and  sometimes  they  do  openly  and 
plainly  trample  all  its  requisitions  under  their  feet. 
So  true  it  is,  that  pride  goeth  before  destruction, 
and  an  haughty  spirit  before  a  fall. 

Our  entire  reliance  upon  Christ  as  himself,  our 
Saviour,  our  only  Saviour,  is  beautifully  expressed 
in  one  of  Herbert's  sweet  though  quaint  pieces, 
entitled,  The  Hold-Fast.  Christ  is  the  Hold-Fast ; 
He  is  the  fast  and  firm  Holder  of  what  is  ours  ;  but 
what  is  ours  is  his,  and  ours  only  as  it  comes  from 
him,  so  that  we  have  nothing  in  ourselves,  even  to 
trust  in  him  being  his.  What  is  ours  in  ourselves 
is  weakness  and  sin ;  what  is  ours  in  him  is 
strength  and  righteousness ;  so  he  is  our  Hold- 
Fast. 

I  threatened  to  observe  the  strict  decree 

Of  my  dear  God  with  all  my  power  and  might : 

But  I  was  told  by  one  it  could  not  be : 
Yet  I  might  trust  in  God  to  be  my  light 

Then  will  I  trust,  said  I,  in  him  alone, 

Nay,  e'en  to  trust  in  him  was  also  his : 
We  must  confess  that  nothing  is  our  own. 

Then  I  confess  that  he  my  succour  is. 

But  to  have  nought  is  ours,  not  to  confess 

That  we  have  nought.    I  stood  amazed  at  this, 
Much  troubled,  till  I  heard  a  friend  express, 
That  all  things  were  more  ours  by  being  his. 
What  Adam  had  and  forfeited  for  all, 
Chast  keepeth  now,  who  cannot  fail  or  fall. 

r 
Vr|iile   Christian  and  Hopeful  were   struggling 

in  Lvis  net,  there  came  a  bright  Shining  One,  with 
a  whip  of  small  cord  in  his  hand,  who  questioned 
the  vas  to  how  they  came  there,  and  what  they 
wert  doing.  When  they  had  told  all,  and  had 
56 


436  THE    CHARACTERS    OF 

been  reminded  that  if  they  had  diligently  perused 
the  note  of  the  way  given  them  by  the  Shepherds, 
they  would  not  have  fallen  into  this  snare  ;  this 
Shining  One  made  them  lie  down,  and  submit  to  a 
sore,  though  loving  chastisement.  By  this  is 
figured  the  discipline  of  the  good  Spirit  of  the 
Lord  with  his  children,  when  they  in  any  manner 
go  astray,  and  also  the  loving  kindness  of  the  Lord, 
even  in  the  chastisement  of  his  people.  As  many 
as  I  love,  I  rebuke  and  chasten.  He  restoreth  my 
soul,  saith  David,  and  leadeth  me  in  the  paths  of 
righteousness  for  his  name's  sake.  So  were  these 
two  erring  disciples,  who  had  now  insensibly  been 
beguiled  away  from  Christ  and  his  righteousness 
into  flattering,  delusive  opinions  of  their  own  attain- 
ments, whipped  back  by  the  Shining  One  into  the 
path  of  humility,  faith,  truth,  and  duty.  So  great 
is  "  the  love  of  the  Spirit,"  so  sweet  and  long-suf- 
fering the  patience  and  the  mercy  of  the  Lord. 

Few  passages  are  more  instructive  than  that 
which  in  this  stage  of  the  pilgrimage  contains  the 
character  of  Little-Faith,  and  the  story  of  the  rob- 
bery he  suffered.  This  man  fell  asleep  in  Dead- 
Man's  Lane,  not  far  from  Broadway  Gate.  He 
had  certainly  no  business  in  that  place,  where  so 
many  murders  were  committed,  and  to  sleep 
there  was  above  all  unsafe.  So  three  desperate 
villains,  Faint-Heart,  Mistrust,  and  Guilt,  set  upon 
him,  and  robbed  him  of  all  his  ready  money,  and 
left  him  half  dead.  There  are  a  great  many 
Little-Faiths  in  our  pilgrimage,  and  though  they 
do  not  all  sleep  in  Dead-Man's  Lane,  yet  they  go 
doubting  and  trembling  through  life.  Faint-Heart, 


IGNORANCE    AND    LITTLE-FAITH.  437 

Mistrust,  and  Guilt  dog  their  footsteps,  and  their 
faith  in  Christ  is  not  strong  enough  to  triumph 
over  these  enemies  and  make  them  flee.  So  they 
go  burdened  with  sin,  and  literally  mourning  after 
Christ,  rather  than  believing  in  him.  Yet,  this 
mourning  after  Christ  is  something  precious  ;  it 
is  infinitely  better  than  hardness  and  indifference 
of  heart,  or  false  security,  and  infinitely  better, 
also,  than  a  dangerous,  false  confidence,  or  a  joy 
that  has  not  a  scriptural  foundation. 

Little-Faith  had  a  tender  conscience,  which 
made  him  bewail  his  sinful  sleep,  and  all  his  fail- 
ings by  the  way.  Little-Faith's  spending  money, 
that  is,  almost  all  the  present  comfort  of  a  hope  in 
Christ,  with  those  foretastes  of  heaven,  which  are 
the  earnest  of  the  Spirit,  was  taken  from  him  by 
those  desperate  robbers  ;  but  his  costly  jewels  they 
did  not  find,  or  else  did  not  value  them,  as  they 
were  good  only  at  the  Celestial  City  ;  that  is,  these 
robbers,  Faint-Heart,  Mistrust,  and  Guilt,  did  not 
take  away  those  graces  of  the  Spirit,  by  which 
Little-Faith's  soul  was  really  united  to  Christ, 
though  they  did  steal  from  him  his  own  present 
evidences,  so  that  he  went  on  distressed  and  trou- 
bled in  his  pilgrimage,  and  a  beggar  to  the  day  of 
his  death. 

There  was  one  good  thing  about  Little-Faith, 
and  that  was  his  sincerity ;  he  had  indeed  little 
faith,  but  what  he  had  was  real  faith,  and  no 
trust  in  his  own  merits.  Now,  if  from  our  faith 
as  Christians,  all  foreign  ingredients  were  ab- 
stracted, all  mixture  of  self-righteousness  and  vain- 
confidence,  it  is  to  be  feared  very  few  of  us  would 


438  THE    CHARACTERS    OF 

be  found  with  much  to  boast  above  Little-Faith  ;  if 
every  thing  were  taken  from  the  grace  which  we 
hope  is  in  our  hearts,  but  only  what  is  "believing 
true,  and  clean,"  what  is  sincere,  without  offence, 
and  pure  before  God,  the  residue  might  be  found 
but  a  very  small  modicum.  Should  all  the  wood, 
hay  and  stubble  be  burned  up,  which  we  have 
builded  on  the  foundation  that  is  laid  for  us,  how 
much  gold,  silver,  and  precious  stones  would  be 
found  remaining,  we  might  fear  to  know.  If  Guilt, 
Mistrust  and  Faint-Heart  were  to  set  upon  us  as 
they  did  upon  Little-Faith,  would  they  take  merely 
our  spending  money,  and  leave  us  our  jewels,  or 
would  they  take  jewels  and  all  ? 

Hopeful  seemed  to  think  if  he  had  been  in  Lit- 
tle-Faith's place,  he  would  not  have  given  up  so 
easily;  but  Christian  bade  him  beware  of  self- 
confidence,  for  it  was  a  very  different  thing  to  hear 
of  these  villains  who  attacked  Little-Faith,  and  to 
be  attacked  by  them  oneself.  No  man  could 
tell  the  wonderful  fearfulness  of  that  combat,  but 
he  who  has  been  in  it.  Great-Grace  himself,  by 
whose  coming  up  the  desperate  rogues  were  fright- 
ened away  from  Little-Faith,  though  excellent 
good  at  his  weapons,  would  very  likely  get  a  fall, 
if  Guilt,  Faint-Heart  and  Mistrust  got  within  him, 
not  being  kept  at  his  sword's  point ;  and  when  a 
man  is  down,  and  three  such  wretches  upon  him, 
what  can  he  do  I  Peter  once  thought  he  would 
never  give  up  ;  he  was  ready  to  try  what  he  could 
do  even  to  go  to  prison  and  to  death,  but  when  these 
grim  robbers  came  upon  him,  "though  some  do  say 
that  he  is  the  Prince  of  the  Apostles,  they  handled 


IGNORANCE    AND    LITTLE-FAITH.  439 

him  so,  that  they  made  him  at  last  afraid  of  a  sorry 
girl."  So  there  is  no  help,  trust,  strength,  or  safety 
for  us  but  in  Christ,  in  his  great  grace  in  us, 
upon  us,  and  for  us.  Great-Grace  must  be  our 
champion,  as  he  was  Little-Faith's,  or  it  is  all  over 
with  us. 

Little-Faith  dwelt  in  the  town  of  Sincere,  and  his 
sincerity  was  a  very  precious  thing  in  him,  for  the 
Lord  looketh  on  the  heart,  and  on  the  man  who 
trembleth  at  his  word.  Moreover,  our  blessed 
Lord  hath  said,  that  he  will  not  break  the  bruised 
reed,  nor  quench  the  smoking  flax ;  and  where  there 
is  smoke,  (as with  Little-Faith  there  was  but  little 
else,  so  that  he  was  under  a  cloud  all  the  while, 
stifled  as  it  were,  with  the  smoke  of  his  evidences, 
and  seeking  in  vain  to  find  his  own  fire,)  yet  there  is 
hope  of  a  blaze  ;  it  will  break  out  at  last,  and 
burn  brightly.  So  if  a  man  can  but  say,  Lord,  I 
believe,  help  thou  mine  unbelief,  if  he  says  this  sin- 
cerely, he  need  never  be  discouraged  ;  let  him  hope 
in  the  Lord.  Little-Grace  can  trust  in  Christ,  and 
Great-Grace  can  do  no  more  ;  and  if  "one  promise 
doth  belong  to  thee,"  says  an  excellent  old  writer, 
"  then  all  do ;  for  every  one  conveys  a  whole  Christ; 
and  Christ  will  acknowledge  thee  to  be  his,  if  he 
sees  but  one  mark  of  his  child  upon  thee  in  truth 
and  sincerity.  For  God  brings  not  a  pair  of  scales 
to  weigh  your  graces,  and  if  they  be  too  light 
refuseth  them  ;  but  he  brings  a  touch-stone  to  try 
them  ;  and  if  they  be  pure  gold,  though  never  so 
little  of  it,  it  will  pass  current  with  him ;  though  it 
be  but  smoke,  not  flame,  though  it  be  but  as  a  wick 
in  the  socket,  (as  the  original  hath  it,)  likelier  to 


440  THE    CHARACTERS    OF 

die  and  go  out,  than  continue,  which  we  use  to 
throw  away  ;  yet  he  will  not  quench  it,  but  accept 
it."  This  is  a  sweet  comforting  truth,  but  let  it 
not  be  turned  to  indolence  or  licentiousness ; 
for  if  a  man  would  have  God  to  work  out  his  salva- 
tion for  him,  he  must  also  be  willing  and  industrious 
to  work  it  out  himself  with  fear  and  trembling. 

The  next  character  which  the  Pilgrims  met  with 
in  their  way  to  the  City,  after,  by  the  help  of  the 
Shining  One,  they  had  escaped  the  net  of  the  Flat- 
terer, was  an  open,  broad,  blaspheming  Atheist. 
He  pretended  to  have  been  twenty  years  seeking 
the  Celestial  City,  and  had  not  found  it,  and  now 
he  knew  there  was  no  such  thing  in  existence,  and 
was  determined  to  take  his  full  swing  of  the  plea- 
sures of  this  life,  to  make  amends  for  all  the  labor 
he  had  undergone.  There  is  no  doubt  that  Bun- 
yan  had  met  with  such  characters  ;  they  are  to  be 
found  sometimes  now  ;  and  dangerous  indeed  they 
are  to  the  young  and  inexperienced.  This  man 
Atheist  reminds  me  of  a  professed  preacher  of  the 
Gospel,  but  a  denier  of  our  Lord's  Divinity  and 
Atonement,  to  whom  I  referred  as  having  been 
settled  over  one  of  Mr.  Legality's  parishes,  who 
had  been  in  early  life  the  subject  of  many  and 
strong  religious  impressions,  but  had  denied  the 
faith,  and  become  worse  than  an  infidel.  This  man 
used  to  say,  just  as  Atheist  to  Christian  and  Hope- 
ful, though  not  that  there  was  no  Celestial  City,  yet 
that  there  was  no  need  of  such  a  laborious  pilgrim- 
age to  come  at  it,  for  that  he  had  been  through 
all  this  pretended  religious  experience,  and  knew 
it  to  be  all  nonsense,  a  perfectly  needless  and 


IGNORANCE    AND    LITTLE-FAITH.  441 

foolish  trouble.  "  The  lips  of  a  fool  will  swallow 
up  himself.  The  beginning  of  the  words  of  his 
mouth  is  foolishness,  and  the  end  of  his  talk  mis- 
chievous madness.  He  knoweth  not  how  to  go  to 
the  City."  This  fool  Atheist  lost  his  labor  with 
Christian  and  Hopeful,  for  they  had  seen  the  Gate 
of  the  Celestial  City  from  the  top  of  the  Delectable 
Mountains.  So  when  temptations  to  unbelief  and 
Atheism  beset  the  Christian,  he  may  very  pro- 
perly throw  himself  back  upon  his  past  experience 
of  God's  loving  kindness,  when  the  candle  of  the 
Lord  shined  upon*him,  and  he  could  see  afar  off. 
So  David,  in  trouble  and  darkness,  remembered 
God  from  such  and  such  a  place,  where  he  had  com- 
manded deliverance,  and  he  knew  he  would  com- 
mand it  again. 

But  now  the  Pilgrims  enter  on  the  Enchanted 
Ground.  The  air  of  that  region  tends  to  such 
drowsiness,  that  it  disposed  the  Pilgrims  to  lie 
down  at  once  and  sleep  ;  and  Hopeful  would  have 
done  so,  had  it  not  been  for  the  warnings  of  Chris- 
tian, who  bade  his  brother  remember  what  the  good 
Shepherds  had  told  them.  Hopeful  was  inclined 
to  say  with  Paul,  "  I  only  and  Barnabas,  have  not 
we  power  to  forbear  working?"  May  I  not  lie  down 
and  take  a  short  nap  ?  said  Hopeful.  Sleep  is 
refreshing  to  the  laboring  man,  and  I  can  scarcely 
hold  my  eyes  open.  Ah,  these  short  naps  for  Pil- 
grims !  The  sleep  of  death,  in  the  Enchanted 
Air  of  this  world,  usually  begins  with  one  of  these 
short  naps. 

Sleeping  here,  there  is  no  safety ;  for  if  you 
give  way  to  your  almost  irresistible  inclination,  it 


442  THE    CHARATERS    OF 

becomes  more  irresistible,  you  are  in  imminent 
danger  of  the  lethargy  of  spiritual  death.  Where- 
fore, beware  of  spiritual  indolence  ;  it  is  a  gradual, 
but  fearful  and  powerful  temptation.  Wherefore, 
let  us  not  sleep,  as  do  others ;  but  let  us  watch  and 
be  sober.  O  beware  of  a  lukewarm  formality  in 
your  spiritual  exercises,  especially  in  prayer,  in 
family  prayer,  in  secret  prayer.  And  rest  not  in 
the  form,  but  pray  earnestly  to  God  to  infuse  more 
life  and  earnestness  in  your  devotions,  to  give  you 
a  more  vivid  view  and  sense  of  eternal  realities, 
to  wake  you  up,  and  to  shake  from  you  this  sloth, 
and  to  make  you  vigorous  and  fervent  in  spirit. 
This  is  what  is  needed,  for  in  this  Enchanted 
Ground  of  indolence  and  spiritual  slumber  you 
must,  though  it  crucify  your  own  flesh,  resist  this 
dangerous  inclination  to  sleep. 

This  desire  to  slumber  is  sometimes  an  indica- 
tion of  spiritual  coldness,  rather  than  of  spiritual 
fatigue,  for  those  who  have  been  exercising 
themselves  vigorously  are  not  apt  to  feel  it ;  so 
that  it  indicates  a  state  in  the  soul,  like  that  which 
takes  place  in  the  body,  when  a  person  is  near 
perishing  in  the  snow.  There  is  an  account  in 
the  voyages  of  some  of  our  early  circumnavigators 
about  the  globe,  of  a  danger  of  this  kind  that  came 
upon  them  when  travelling  in  a  certain  frozen 
region,  which  I  always  think  of  when  I  come  to 
this  place  in  the  Pilgrim's  Progress.  The  surgeon 
of  the  company,  a  man  of  great  skill  and  firm- 
ness, warned  his  companions  that  they  would  feel 
a  great  inclination  to  sleep,  but  that  so  sure  as  they 
gave  way  to  it,  they  would  die  in  it,  for  no  power 


IGNORANCE   AND    LITTLE-FAITH.  448 

on  earth  could  wake  them.  But  if  I  remember 
right,  this  very  surgeon,  Dr.  Solander,  was  one  of 
the  first  to  be  overcome  with  this  irresistible  desire 
to  sleep  ;  and  had  they  not,  by  main  force,  kept 
him  from  it,  he  would  have  lain  down  in  the  cold, 
and  slept,  and  died.  Now,  when  this  inclination  to 
spiritual  slumber  is  the  result  of  spiritual  coldness, 
a  man  is  in  danger  indeed.  It  is  time  to  bestir 
yourself,  for  if  you  yield  to  this  propensity,  it  is 
most  likely  that  death  will  overtake  you  in  it. 
Wherefore  rouse  up,  and  walk  on,  and  beat  your- 
self, if  need  be,  and  call  earnestly  upon  God  to  save 
you,  and  Christ  will  be  your  guide. 

The  way  Christian  and  Hopeful  took  to  avoid 
this  danger  was  excellent  and  very  instructive. 
They  sang  and  conversed  together,  and  Hopeful 
related  to  Christian  the  deeply  .interesting  ac- 
count of  his  own  Christian  experience.  While 
they  were  thus  musing,  singing  and  talking,  the 
fire  burned,  and  the  danger  grew  less  and  less, 
the  more  they  became  interested.  So  sweet  is 
heavenly  conversation  between  Christians,  so  good 
to  warm  and  enliven  the  heart.  No  wonder,  where 
there  is  so  little  of  it,  and  so  much  and  constant 
vain  and  trifling  talk  on  the  vanities  of  this  world, 
that  there  should  be  so  much  spiritual  coldness. 
Some  men  are  all  ear  and  tongue  in  earthly  things, 
conversable  and  social  in  the  highest  degree  on  the 
business,  arts,  and  manners  of  this  world,  but  when 
it  comes  to  things  of  spiritual  experience,  when 
it  comes  to  that  exhortation,  Let  your  speech  be 
always  with  grace,  seasoned  with  salt,  ah,  how 
little  salt  is  there!  Attic  salt,  as  the  world  calls 
57 


444  THE    CHARACTERS    OP 

it,  there  may  be,  plenty  of  it ;  wit  and  learning, 
and  common  gossip  in  abundance  ;  but  of  the  salt 
of  grace,  hardly  enough  to  keep  the  talk  from  the 
dunghill.  This  is  sad,  and  yet  true.  But  Chris- 
tian conversation,  warm  from  the  heart,  is  a  pre- 
cious means  of  life,  and  the  means,  sometimes,  of 
opening  the  prison  doors,  and  bringing  out  a  sleeper. 
Bunyan's  lines  are  as  true  as  they  are  pithy : 

Saints'  fellowship,  if  it  be  managed  well, 
Keeps  them  awake,  and  that  in  spite  of  hell. 

Such  conversation  as  that  of  Christian  and 
Hopeful  is  full  of  awakening  and  edifying  power. 

Hopeful  gave  Christian  an  account  of  his  own 
conversion,  and  seldom  indeed  has  there  ever  been 
a  description  of  the  workings  of  conscience,  and 
the  leadings  and  discipline  of  Divine  Providence 
and  Grace  with  an  individual  soul  bringing  it  to 
repentance,  in  which  the  points  and  main  course  of 
conviction,  conversion,  arid  Christian  experience, 
have  been  brought  out  with  such  beautiful  distinct- 
ness and  power.  It  is  very  instructive  to  trace  them 
in  Hopeful's  relation.  He  was  first  awakened  by 
the  life  and  death  of  Faithful  in  Vanity  Fair. 
Many  a  conscience  can  answer  to  the  truth  of 
his  enumeration  of  the  occasions  and  times  in 
which,  even  in  his  unconverted  state,  he  used  to 
remember  God,  and  be  troubled.  Heart-frightening 
hours  of  conviction  he  had  upon  him,  and  many 
things  would  bring  his  sins  to  mind  ;  as,  if  he  did 
but  meet  a  good  man  in  the  streets,  or  if  he  heard 
any  one  read  in  the  Bible;  or  if  his  head  did  begin 
to  ache;  or  if  he  were  told  that  some  of  his  neigh- 


IGNORANCE    AND    LITTLE-FAITH.  445 

bors  were  sick  ;  or  if  he  heard  the  bell  toll  for  some 
that  were  dead ;  or  if  he  thought  of  dying  him- 
self; or  if  he  heard  that  sudden  death  happened  to 
others ;  but  especially  when  he  thought  of  himself, 
that  he  must  come  to  judgment.  So  there  was 
continually,  as  with  all  wicked  men,  a  dreadful  sound 
in  HopefuFs  ears.  The  truth  is,  the  Ocean  of  Eter- 
nity will  make  itself  heard.  And  there  is  a  low 
wailing  sound,  as  of  spirits  in  torment,  always 
waited  across  it  to  the  inhabitants  of  this  world,  as 
well  as  the  voice  of  the  spirits  in  bliss,  saying, 
Come  up  hither ! 

These  things  set  Hopeful  upon  an  effort  to 
amend  his  life,  for  otherwise,  thought  he,  I  am 
sure  to  be  damned.  So  he  betook  himself  to 
praying,  reading,  weeping  for  sin,  speaking  the 
truth  to  his  neighbors,  and  many  other  things,  and 
thus,  for  a  little  season,  succeeded  in  lulling  and 
satisfying  conscience.  But  again  his  difficulties 
were  renewed,  and  his  trouble  came  tumbling  upon 
him,  and  that  over  the  neck  of  all  his  reformation. 
Such  sentences  as  these  sounded  in  his  ears ;  By 
the  works  of  the  law  shall  no  man  be  justified  ;  and 
He  that  offendeth  in  one  point  is  guilty  of  all. 
Moreover,  Hopeful  found  that  no  present  reforma- 
tion would  wipe  off  the  score  of  past  sins,  and 
indeed  he  could  get  no  relief  but  in  Christ.  By 
Faithful's  directions,  he  went  to  the  mercy-seat, 
and  pleaded  with  God  to  reveal  Christ  unto  him ; 
and  though  he  was  tempted  to  give  up  praying,  an 
hundred  times  twice  told,  yet  he  persevered,  till  in 
that  saying,  Believe  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and 
thou  shalt  be  saved,  he  found  peace ;  he  found  that 


446  THE  CHARACTERS  OF 

coming  to  Christ,  and  believing  on  him  are  all  one. 
He  found  then  to  whom  he  must  look  for  right- 
eousness, and  what  it  was  to  trust  in  the  merits  of 
Christ,  and  what  was  meant  when  it  was  said  that 
Christ  is  the  end  of  the  law  for  righteousness  to 
every  one  that  believeth. 

Hopeful's  experience  stands  in  a  fine  instruc- 
tive contrast  with  that  of  Ignorance ;  the  first 
shows  the  relish  of  the  renewed  heart  for  pure 
divine  truth,  and  the  secret  of  it ;  the  second  shows 
the  secret  of  the  opposition  of  the  unrenewed  heart 
against  that  same  divine  truth  in  its  purity.  The 
pride  of  our  nature  is  one  of  the  last  evils  revealed 
to  ourselves,  and  whatever  goes  against  it,  we  do 
naturally  count  as  our  enemy.  But  Humility, 
learning  of  Christ,  makes  a  different  estimate,  and 
counts  as  precious,  beyond  price,  all  that  truth  and 
virtue  in  the  Gospel  which  abases  self 


The  soul,  whose  sight  all  quickening  grace  renews, 
Takes  the  resemblance  of  the  good  she  views, 
As  diamonds,  stripped  of  their  opaque  disguise,  / 

Reflect  the  noon-day  glory  of  the  skies. 
She  speaks  of  Him,  her  Author,  Guardian,  Friend, 
Whose  love  knew  no  beginning,  knows  no  end, 
In  language  warm,  as  all  that  love  inspires, 
And  in  the  glow  of  her  intense  desires, 
Pants  to  communicate  her  noble  fires.  COWPBS,. 


On  the  other  hand,  those  who  do  not  love  God 
cannot  expect  to  find  in  his  Word  a  system  of  truth 
that  will  please  their  own  hearts.  A  sinful  heart  V 
can  have  no  right  views  of  God,  and  of  course  will 
have  defective  views  of  his  Word  ;  for  sin  distorts 
the  judgment,  and  overturns  the  balance  of  the 
mind  on  all  moral  subjects  far  more  than  even 


IGNORANCE    AND   LITTLE-FAITH.  447 

the  best  of  men  are  aware  of.  There  is,  there  can 
be,  no  true  reflection  of  God  or  of  his  Word  from 
the  bosom  darkened  with  guilt,  from  the  heart  at 
enmity  with  him.  That  man  will  always  look 
at  God  through  the  medium  of  his  ewn  selfishness, 
and  at  God's  Word  through  the  coloring  of  his  own 
wishes,  prejudices,  and  fears. 

A  heart  that  loves  the  Saviour,  and  rejoices  in 
God  as  its  Sovereign,  reflects  back  in  calmness 
the  perfect  view  of  his  character,  which  it  finds  in 
his  Word.  Behold,  on  the  borders  of  a  mountain 
lake,  the  reflection  of  the  scene  above  received  into 
the  bosom  of  the  lake  below !  See  that  crag  pro- 
jecting, the  wild  flowers  that  hang  out  from  it,  and 
bend  as  if  to  gaze  at  their  own  forms  in  the  water 
beneath.  Observe  that  plot  of  green  grass  above, 
that  tree  springing  from  the  cleft,  and  over  all,  the 
quiet  sky  reflected  in  all  its  softness  and  depth  from 
the  lake's  steady  surface.  Does  it  not  seem  as  if 
there  were  two  heavens  1  How  perfect  the  re- 
flection !  And  just  as  perfect  and  clear  and  free 
from  confusion  and  perplexity  is  the  reflection  of 
God's  character,  and  of  the  truths  of  his  Word 
from  the  quietness  of  the  heart  that  loves  the  Sa- 
viour and  rejoices  in  his  supreme  and  sovereign 
glory. 

Now  look  again.  The  wind  is  on  the  lake,  and 
drives  forward  its  waters  in  crested  and  impetuous 
waves,  angry  and  turbulent.  Where  is  that  sweet 
image?  There  is  no  change  above  :  the  sky  is  as 
clear,  the  crag  projects  as  boldly,  the  flowers  look 
just  as  sweet  in  their  unconscious  simplicity  ;  but 
below,  banks,  trees  and  skies  'are  all  mingled  in 


448  THE    CHARATERS    OF 

confusion.  There  is  just  as  much  confusion  in 
every  unholy  mind's  idea  of  God  and  his  blessed 
Word.  God  and  his  truth  are  always  clear,  always 
the  same  ;  but  the  passions  of  men  fill  their  own 
hearts  with  obscurity  and  turbulence  ;  their  depra- 
vity is  itself  obscurity,  and  through  all  this  perplex- 
ity and  wilful  ignorance  they  contend  that  God  is 
just  such  a  being  as  they  behold  him,  and  that 
they  are  very  good  beings  in  his  sight.  We  have 
heard  of  a  defect  in  the  bodily  vision,  that  represents 
all  objects  upside  down  :  that  man  would  cer- 
tainly be  called  insane,  who,  under  the  influence 
of  this  misfortune,  should  so  blind  his  understand- 
ing, as  to  believe  and  assert  that  men  walked 
on  their  heads,  and  that  the  trees  grew  down- 
wards. Now,  is  it  not  a  much  greater  insanity 
for  men  who  in  their  hearts  do  not  love  God, 
and  in  their  lives  perhaps  insult  and  disobey  him, 
to  give  credit  to  their  own  perverted  misrepresen- 
tations of  him  and  of  his  Word?  As  long  as 
men  will  continue  to  look  at  God's  truth  through 
the  medium  of  their  own  pride  and  prejudice, 
so  long  they  will  have  mistaken  views  of  God 
and  eternity,  so  long  will  their  own  self-right- 
eousness look  better  to  them  for  a  resting  place 
than  the  glorious  righteousness  of  Him,  who  of 
God  is  made  unto  us  our  Wisdom,  Righteousness, 
Sanctification  and  Redemption. 

Such  an  one  is  the  mere  "  natural  man  (who) 
receiveth  not  the  things  of  the  Spirit  of  God  :  for 
they  are  foolishness  unto  him  :  neither  can  he  know 
them,  for  they  are  spiritually  discerned."  He  has 
not  the  proper  discipline  and  preparation  of  heart — 


IGNORANCE   AND    LITTLE-FAITH.  449 

the  pure  and  fitting  tastes  for  these  higher  and 
better  things.  He  has  dwelt  in  a  low  earthly  region 
until  his  whole  being  has  become  conformed  to  low 
and  earthly  objects;  and  his  dimmed  and  distorted 
vision  cannot  see  the  bright  heaven  above  him.  As 
well  might  the  untutored  eye  of  him  who  hath  al- 
ways been  laboring  in  the  dark  and  dusty  mines 
under  ground,  attempt  to  judge  of  the  beauty  of 
colors,  and  to  determine  the  rules  of  art.  Such  an 
one  is  justly  called  Ignorance,  and  his  self-confi- 
dence only  serves  the  more  to  set  off  the  barrenness 
and  grovelling  tastes  of  his  soul.  The  more  confi- 
dent and  dogmatical  he  is,  the  more  an  object  of 
pity  does  he  become  to  good  angels  and  spiritual 
men,  and  of  contempt  and  mockery  to  lost  spirits. 
His  boastfulness  is  only  the  strong  symptom  of  his 
insanity,  and  the  sure  token  of  his  perdition. 

On  the  other  hand,  he  who  hath  renounced  his 
self-righteousness,  and,  with  a  broken  and  contrite 
heart,  hath  fled  for  refuge  to  the  righteousness  of 
Christ,  he  hath  found  a  clear  vision  and  noble  and 
rational  tastes.  Now  he  despises  and  loathes  the 
objects  which  he  before  admired  and  loved,  and  lifts 
up  his  rejoicing  eye  to  behold  the  beautiful  scenery 
of  the  green  and  smiling  earth,  and  the  quiet  lake 
reflecting  the  happy  heavens,  and  he  sees  the  happy 
heavens  themselves,  from  whence  the  reflection 
comes.  Justly  is  this  one  called  Hopeful.  The  things 
which  he  hath  chosen  are  not  in  the  present,  but 
they  open  to  him  in  the  blessed  future.  He  hopes 
for  them,  and  he  hopes  not  in  painful  doubtfulness, 
but  in  the  sweet  assurance  of  the  faith  which  hath 
brought  him  to  Christ. 


450  THE    CHARACTERS,    &C. 

Abba,  Father !  send  forth  the  Spirit  of  thy  dear 
Son  into  our  hearts,  that  we,  being  made  humble, 
believing,  and  holy,  may  ever  give  back  a  serene, 
unsullied  reflection  of  thy  Truth  and  Love  ! 
Blessed  is  that  Spirit  of  Adoption  !  Grant  that 
we  all,  in  its  possession,  may  be  made  the  children 
of  God  by  faith  in  Christ  Jesus.  May  we,  through 
the  Spirit,  wait  for  the  hope  of  righteousness 
by  Faith :  remembering  that  in  Jesus  Christ 
neither  circumcision  availeth  any  thing,  nor  uncir- 
cumcision,  but  FAITH,  which  worketh  by  LOVE. 
For  we  are  made  partakers  of  Christ,  if  we  hold 
the  beginning  of  our  confidence  steadfast  unto  the 
end. 


Oft  as  I  look  upon  the  road 
That  leads  to  yonder  blest  abode, 

I  feel  distressed  and  fearful : 

So  many  foes  the  passage  throng, 

I  am  so  weak  and  they  so  strong, 

How  can  my  soul  be  cheerful ! 

But  when  I  think  of  Him,  whose  power 
Can  save  me  in  a  trying  hour, 

And  place  on  Him  reliance,. 
My  soul  is  then  ashamed  of  fear ; 
And  though  ten  thousand  foes  appear, 

I'll  bid  them  all  defiance. 

The  dangerous  road  1  then  pursue, 
And  keep  the  glorious  prize  in  view, 

With  joyful  hope  elated  ; 
Strong  in  the  Lord,  in  Him  alone, 
Where  he  conducts,  I  follow  on. 

With  ardour  unabated. 

O  Lord,  each  day  renew  my  strength, 
And  let  me  see  thy  face  at  length, 

With  all  thy  people  yonder : 
With  them  in  heaven  thy  love  declare, 
And  sing  thy  praise  for  ever  there, 

With  gratitude  and  wonder. 


THE 

LAND    BEULAH 

AND   THE 

RIVER    OF     DEATH. 


Gradual  progress  of  the  Pilgrims  from  strength  to  strength.— Their  enjoyment  in  the 
Land  Beulah. — Similar  experience  of  Dr.  Payson. — Beauty  and  glory  of  the  close 
of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress. — Fear  of  Death  by  the  Pilgrims. — Bunyan's  own  expe- 
rience.— Why  Death  is  the  King  of  Terrors. — Dying  is  but  going  home  for  the 
Christian. — Death-beds  of  believers  and  unbelievers  contrasted. — Christian  in- 
stances in  Fuller,  Pearce,  Janeway,  Payson,  and  others. — Blessedness  of  such  a 
death. — Necessity  of  a  preparation  for  it  in  life. — What  constitutes  the  Land 
Beulah. — Sweetness  and  preciousness  of  a  close  walk  with  God. — Solemn  lesson 
from  the  fate  of  Ignorance. — No  safety  but  in  Christ. 

WE  are  come  now,  in  our  pilgrimage,  as  far  as 
to  the  Land  Benlah.  Would  that  we  were  all 
there  in  reality,  and  could  abide  there  while  we 
stay  this  side  of  the  River  of  Death.  But  the 
Land  Beulah,  lovely  as  it  is,  is  only  one  stage 
in  our  pilgrimage,  and  that  a  very  advanced  stage. 
And  it  is  observable  how  Bunyan  makes  his  Pil- 
grims go  from  strength  to  strength,  by  a  gradual 
progress,  from  one  degree  of  grace,  discipline,  and 
glory  to  another,  in  accordance  with  that  sweet 
scripture  image,  "  The  path  of  the  Just  is  as  a 
shining  light,  that  shineth  more  and  more  unto  the 
perfect  day."  So  the  Pilgrims  go  from  strength  to 
strength,  every  one  of  them  in  Zion  appearing 
before  God.  They  first,  from  the  House  Beautiful, 
57 


452  THE    LAND    BEULAH 

had  a  view  of  the  Delectable  Mountains  ;  then, 
from  the  Delectable  Mountains,  they  had  a  view  of 
the  Celestial  City;  then  in  the  Land  Beulah,  they 
even  meet  with  the  inhabitants  of  that  City.  In 
this  land  they  also  hear  voices  coming  out  of  the 
City,  and  they  draw  so  near  to  it  that  the  view  of  its 
glory  is  almost  overpowering.  Would  to  God  that 
we  all  did  better  know  the  meaning  of  these  images 
by  our  own  blissful  experience  ;  for  certainly  the 
imagination  alone  cannot  interpret  them  to  us.  A 
very  near,  deep,  blissful  communion  with  God  is 
here  portrayed,  and  that  beholding  as  in  a  glass 
the  glory  of  the  Lord,  by  which  daily  the  soul  is 
changed  more  and  more  into  the  same  image.  Here 
the  ministering  spirits  that  do  wait  upon  us  are 
more  frequent  and  fall  in  their  companies.  Here 
the  Spirit  of  Adoption  is  breathed  over  the  soul, 
and  it  walks  and  talks  with  Christ,  almost  as 
Moses  and  Elias  in  the  Mount  of  Transfiguration. 
No  other  language  than  that  of  Bunyan  himself, 
perused  in  the  pages  of  his  own  sweet  book,  could 
be  successful  in  portraying  this  beauty  and  glory ; 
for  now  he  seems  to  feel  that  all  the  dangers  of  the 
pilgrimage  are  almost  over,  and  he  gives  up  himself 
without  restraint  so  entirely  to  the  sea  of  bliss  that 
surrounds  him,  and  to  the  gales  of  heaven  that  are 
wafting  him  on,  and  to  the  sounds  of  melody  that 
float  in  the  whole  air  around  him,  that  nothing  in 
the  English  language  can  be  compared  with  this 
whole  closing  part  of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress,  for  its 
entrancing  splendor,  yet  serene  and  simple  loveli- 
ness. The  coloring  is  that  of  heaven  in  the  soul,  and 
Bunyan  has  poured  his  own  heaven-entranced  soul 


AND    THE    RIVER    OF    DEATH.  453 

into  it.  With  all  its  depth  and  power,  there  is 
nothing  exaggerated,  and  it  is  made  up  of  the 
simplest  and  most  scriptural  materials  and  images. 
We  seem  to  stand  in  a  flood  of  light  poured  on  us 
from  the  open  gates  of  Paradise.  It  falls  on  every 
leaf  and  shrub  by  the  way-side  ;  it  is  reflected  from 
the  crystal  streams,  that  between  grassy  banks 
wind  amidst  groves  of  fruit-trees  into  vineyards 
and  flower-gardens.  These  fields  of  Beulah  are 
just  below  the  gate  of  heaven ;  and  with  the  light  of 
heaven  there  come  floating  down  the  melodies  of 
heaven,  so  that  here  there  is  almost  an  open  reve- 
lation of  the  things  which  God  hath  prepared  for 
them  that  love  him. 

During  the  last  days  of  that  eminent  man  of 
God,  Dr.  Payson,  he  once  said,  "  When  I  formerly 
read  Bunyan's  description  of  the  Land  Beulah, 
where  the  sun  shines  and  the  birds  sing  day  and 
night,  I  used  to  doubt  whether  there  was  such  a 
place  ;  but  now  my  own  experience  has  convinced 
me  of  it,  and  it  infinitely  transcends  all  my  previous 
conceptions."  The  best  possible  commentary  on 
the  glowing  descriptions  in  Bunyan  is  to  be  found 
in  that  very  remarkable  letter  dictated  by  Dr.  Pay- 
son  to  his  sister  a  few  weeks  before  his  death. 
"  Were  I  to  adopt  the  figurative  language  of  Bun- 
yan, I  might  date  this  letter  from  the  Land  Beulah, 
of  which  I  have  been  for  some  weeks  a  happy 
inhabitant.  The  Celestial  City  is  full  in  my  view. 
Its  glories  have  been  upon  me,  its  breezes  fan  me, 
its  odors  are  wafted  to  me,  its  sounds  strike  upon 
my  ears,  and  its  spirit  is  breathed  into  my  heart. 
Nothing  separates  me  from  it  but  the  River  of 


454  THE    LAND    BEULAH 


.        . 


Death,  which  now  appears  but  as  an  insignificant 
rill,  that  may  be  crossed  at  a  single  step,  whenever 
God  shall  give  permission.  The  Sun  of  Righte- 
ousness has  been  gradually  drawing  nearer  and 
nearer,  appearing  larger  and  brighter  as  he  ap- 
proached, and  now  he  fills  the  whole  hemisphere  ; 
pouring  forth  a  flood  of  glory,  in  which  I  seem  to 
float  like  an  insect  in  the  beams  of  the  sun  ;  ex- 
ulting, yet  almost  trembling,  while  I  gaze  on  this 
excessive*  brightness,  and  wondering  with  unuttera- 
ble wonder,  why  God  should  deign  thus  to  shine 
upon  a  sinful  worm." 

There  is  perhaps,  in  all  our  language,  no  record 
of  a  Christian's  happiness  before  death,  so  striking 
as  this.  What  is  it  not  worth  to  enjoy  such  con- 
solations as  these  in  our  pilgrimage,  and  especially 
to  experience  such  foretastes  of  heaven  as  we  draw 
near  to  the  River  of  Death ;  such  revelations  of 
God  in  Christ  as  can  swallow  up  the  fears  and 
pains  of  dying,  and  make  the  soul  exult  in  the 
vision  of  a  Saviour's  loveliness,  the  assurance  of 
a  Saviour's  mercy.  There  is  no  self-denial,  no 
toil,  no  suffering  in  this  life  which  is  worthy  to  be 
compared  for  a  moment  with  such  blessedness. 

It  is  very  remarkable  that  Bunyan  has,  as  it 
were,  attempted  to  lift  the  veil  from  the  grave,  from 
eternity,  in  the  beatific  closing  part  of  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress,  and  to  depict  what  passes,  or  may  be 
supposed  to  pass,  with  the  souls  of  the  righteous, 
immediately  after  death.  There  is  a  very  familiar 
verse  of  Watts,  founded  on  the  unsuccessful  effort 
of  the  mind  to  conceive  definitely  the  manner  of 


AND    THE    RIVER    OF   DEATH.  455 

that  existence  into  which  the  immortal  spirit  is  to 
be  ushered. 

In  vain  the  fancy  strives  to  paint 

The  moment  after  death, 
The  glories  that  surround  the  saint 

In  yielding  up  his  breath. 

The  old  poet,  Henry  Vaughan,  in  his  fragment  on 
Heaven  in  prospect,  refers  to  the  same  uncertainty, 
in  stanzas  that,  though  somewhat  quaint,  are  very 
striking. 

Dear,  beauteous  Death,  the  jewel  of  the  just, 

Shining  no  where  but  in  the  dark, 
What  mysteries  do  lie  beyond  thy  dust, 

Could  man  outlook  that  mark  ! 
He  that  hath  found  some  fledg'd  bird's  nest,  may  know 

At  first  sight  if  the  bird  be  flown, 
But  what  fair  field  or  grove  he  sings  in  now 

That  is  to  him  unknown. 
And  yet,  as  angels  in  some  brighter  dreams 

Call  to  the  soul  when  man  doth  sleep, 
So  some  strange  thoughts  transcend  our  wonted  themes, 

And  into  glory  peep. 

Indeed,  our  most  definite  views  of  that  glory  is  but 
a  glimpse,  a  guess,  a  look  as  through  a  dim  glass 
darkly,  and  what  we  know  of  the  intermediate  or  im- 
mediate state  of  untabernacled  souls  is  but  little  and 
in  part.  Perhaps  the  most  general  conception  is 
that  of  an  immediate,  instantaneous  transition 
into  the  vision  and  presence  of  God  and  the  Lamb. 
But  Bunyan  has  with  great  beauty  and  probability 
brought  in  the  ministry  of  angels,  and  regions  of 
the  air,  to  be  passed  through  in  their  company, 
rising  and  still  rising,  higher  and  higher,  before 
they  come  to  that  mighty  mount,  on  which  he 
has  placed  the  gates  of  the  Celestial  City.  The 
angels  receive  his  Pilgrims  as  they  come  up  from  the 


456  THE    LAND    BEULAH 

River  of  Death,  and  form  for  them  a  bright,  glit- 
tering, seraphic,  loving  convoy,  whose  conversa- 
tion prepares  them  gradually  for  that  exceeding 
and  eternal  weight  of  glory,  which  is  to  be  theirs 
as  they  enter  in  at  the  Gate.  Bunyan  has  thus,  in 
this  blissful  passage  from  the  River  to  the  Gate, 
done  what  no  other  devout  writer,  or  dreamer,  or 
speculator,  that  we  are  aware  of,  has  ever  done ; 
he  has  filled  what  perhaps  in  most  minds  is  a  mere 
blank,  a  vacancy,  or  at  most  a  bewilderment  and 
mist  of  glory,  with  definite  and  beatific  images, 
with  natural  thoughts,  and  with  the  sympathising 
communion  of  gentle  spirits,  who  form,  as  it  were, 
an  outer  porch  and  perspective  of  glory,  through 
which,  the  soul  passes  into  uncreated  light.  Bun- 
yan has  thrown  a  bridge,  as  it  were,  for  the  imagi- 
nation over  the  deep,  sudden,  open  space  of  an 
untried  spiritual  existence,  where  it  finds  ready  to 
receive  the  soul  that  leaves  the  body,  ministering 
spirits,  sent  forth  to  minister  unto  them  who  are  to 
be  heirs  of  salvation. 

These  ministering  spirits  he  can  describe,  with 
the  beauty  and  glory  of  their  form  and  garments, 
and  the  ravishing  sweetness  of  their  conversation; 
he  can  also  describe  the  feelings  of  the  Pilgrims  in 
such  company,  and  their  glorious  progress  up  throgh 
the  regions  of  the  air  to  their  eternal  dwelling-place. 
He  can  image  to  us  their  warm  thoughts  about  the 
reception  they  are  to  meet  with  in  the  City,  and 
the  blessedness  of  beholding  "  the  King  in  his 
beauty,"  and  of  dwelling  with  such  glorious  com- 
pany forever  and  ever  ;  but  Bunyan  goes  no  far- 
ther ;  he  does  not  attempt  to  describe,  or  even  sha- 


AND    THE    RIVER   OF  DEATH.  457 

dow  forth  their  meeting  with  the  Lord  God  Al- 
mighty and  the  Lamb  in  that  Celestial  City.  This 
would  have  been  presumption.  He  has  gone  as 
far  as  the  purest  devotion,  and  the  sweetest  poetry 
could  go,  as  far  as  an  imagination  kindled,  in- 
formed, and  sustained  by  the  Holy  Scriptures, 
could  carry  us  ;  he  has  set  us  down  amidst  the 
ministry  and  conversation  of  angels,  at  the  Gate  of 
the  City,  and  as  the  Gate  opens  to  let  in  the  Pil- 
grims, he  lets  us  look  in  ourselves  ;  but  farther  nor 
revelation  nor  imagination  traces  the  picture. 

But  in  all  the  untrodden  space  which  Bunyan 
has  thus  filled  up,  he  has  authority  as  well  as  pro- 
bability on  his  side.  For  our  blessed  Lord  said  of 
the  good  man  Lazarus,  that  when  he  died  he  was 
carried  by  the  angels  into  Abraham's  bosom,  that 
is,  into  the  abode  of  the  blessed.  It  is  not  said 
that  the  instant  Lazarus  died  he  was  with  Christ  in 
glory,  but  the  mind  has  an  intermediate  transac- 
tion, a  passage,  a  convoy,  to  rest  upon;  "he  was 
carried  by  angels ;"  there  is  time  occupied,  and  a 
passage  from  this  existence  to  the  sight  of  God  and 
the  eternal  life  of  glory,  which  passage  Bunyan 
has  filled  up  with  the  utmost  probability,  as  well  as 
with  an  exquisite  warmth  and  beauty  of  imagery, 
which  finds  no  rival  in  the  language.  The  de- 
scription comes  from  the  heart,  and  from  an  imagi- 
nation fed,  nourished,  and  disciplined  by  the  Scrip- 
tures ;  and  this  is  the  secret  of  its  power,  the  secret 
of  the  depth  and  heavenly  glow  of  its  ravishing 
colors,  and  of  the  emotions  with  which  it  stirs  the 
soul  even  to  tears.  For  it  is  almost  impossible  in  a 
right  frame  of  heart,  to  read  this  description  with- 


458  THE    LAM)    BEULAH 

out  weeping,  especially  that  part  of  it  where  Chris- 
tian and  Hopeful  pass  the  River  of  Death  together. 
How  full  of  sweet  feeling  and  Christian  wisdom 
is  this  passage !  How  gentle,  and  tenderly  affec- 
tionate are  Hopeful's  efforts  to  encourage  his 
fainting  brother  !  And  how  instructive  the  fact 
that  here  the  older  and  more  experienced  Christian 
of  the  two,  and  that  soldier  in  the  Christian  conflict 
who  had  the  most  scars  upon  him  for  Christ,  should 
be  the  one  to  whom  the  passage  of  the  River  of 
Death  was  most  difficult — instructive,  as  showing  us 
that  safety  does  not  depend  upon  present  comfort, 
but  upon  Christ,  and  that  it  is  wrong  to  measure 
one's  holiness  and  degree  of  preparation  for  death, 
by  the  degree  in  which  the  fear  of  death  may  have 
departed.  The  Pilgrims,  especially  Christian, 
began  to  despond  in  their  mind  when  they  came  to 
the  River.  Notwithstanding  the  angels  were 
with  them,  and  though  they  had  been  for  many  days 
abiding  in  the  Land  Beulah,  and  though  they  were 
now  in  full  view  of  the  Celestial  City,  and  though 
they  heard  the  bells  ringing,  and  the  melodious 
music  of  the  City  ravishing  their  hearts,  yet  were 
their  hearts  cast  down  as  they  came  to  the  borders 
of  this  river,  and  found  no  means  of  being  carried 
across  it. 

For  timorous  mortals  start  and  shrink, 

To  cross  that  narrow  sea, 
And  linger,  shivering  on  the  brink, 

And  fear  to  launch  away. 

They  looked  about  them  on  this  side  and  on  that, 
and  inquired  of  their  shining  seraphic  companions 
if  there  were  no  other  way  of  getting  over  the 


AND    THE    RIVER    OF   DEATH.  459 

river,  and  they  must  go  into  it :  and  when  told 
there  was  none,  they  were  at  a  stand.  With  all 
the  glory  before  them,  it  was  death's  cold  flood 
still.  The  fear  of  death  is  not  always  taken 
away,  even  from  experienced  and  faithful  Chris- 
tians, nor  is  the  passage  without  terrors.  Chris- 
tian had  much  darkness  and  horror,  while  to 
Hopeful  there  was  good  ground  ail  the  way. 
Christian  was  wrong  when  he  said,  If  I  were 
right,  He  would  now  arise  to  help  me  ;  for  he 
had,  as  Hopeful  told  him,  forgotten  that  it  was 
of  the  wicked  that  God  saith,  There  are  no 
bands  in  their  death.  However,  it  is  observable 
that  Christian's  darkness  did  not  last  quite  over 
the  River.  The  Saviour  was  at  length  revealed  to 
him,  the  clouds  and  darkness  fled  away,  the  evil 
spirits,  and  the  shades  of  unbelief  that  had  invited 
and  strengthened  their  temptations,  were  subdued 
and  put  to  flight  forever,  and  the  Enemy  after  that 
was  as  still  as  a  stone,  and  the  rest  of  the  River 
was  but  shallow. 

"  Brother,  I  see  the  Gate,"  Hopeful  would  say, 
while  Christian  was  sinking,  "  and  men  standing 
by  to  receive  us."  But  Christian  would  answer, 
"  It  is  you,  it  is  you,  that  they  wait  for  ;  you  have 
been  hopeful  ever  since  I  knew  you."  "And  so 
have  you,"  said  he  to  Christian.  What  affecting 
simplicity,  and  faith  and  love  in  this  last,  stern,  dark 
scene  and  conflict  of  their  pilgrimage  !  The  Great 
Tempter  and  Accuser  of  the  saints  was  busy  now 
with  Christian,  as  he  had  been  under  the  form  of 
Apollyon,  and  in  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of 
58 


460  THE    LAND    BEULAH 

Death.  But  this  was  his  last  opportunity  forever, 
and  his  last  desperate  assault. 

If  Bunyari,  throughout  this  work,  had  been  un- 
consciously throwing  into  his  delineation  of  Chris- 
tian's character  the  features  of  his  own  religious 
experience,  we  may  suppose  that  he  drew  this  death 
scene  also  with  a  foreboding  that  his  own  soul 
would  have  to  experience  in  the  last  mortal  hour, 
another  fearful  conflict  with  the  Adversary.  But 
could  he  have  returned  into  life,  to  paint  the  con- 
clusion of  his  own  passage  of  the  River  of  Death, 
there  would  have  been  little  or  no  gloom  in  the 
coloring,  for  his  own  death  was  full  of  peace  and 
glory  ;  his  forebodings,  if  he  had  them,  were 
never  realized.  We  may  suppose  that  in  general 
the  children  of  God  find  this  passage  much  easier 
in  reality  than  they  had  anticipated  ;  but  it  is  only 
because  Christ  is  with  them  ;  he  is  with  them  in 
death,  by  a  manifestation  not  granted  in  life, 
because  not  necessary.  Yet,  if  there  were  as 
great  conflicts  to  pass  through  in  life,  there 
would  be  as  great  and  sustaining  manifestations 
of  the  Saviour.  In  life  and  in  death  he  know- 
eth  how  to  succour  them  that  are  tempted.  To 
those  who  live  by  the  grace  of  Christ  during 
life,  dying  grace  will  be  vouchsafed  in  a  dying 
hour ;  for  he  hath  said,  My  grace  is  sufficient  for 
thee. 

It  is  appointed  unto  all  men  once  to  die,  and  after 
that  the  judgment.  It  is  this  judgment  which  sin- 
ful men  dread ;  it  is  this  which  makes  Death  the 
KING  OF  TERRORS.  The  future  is  indeed  an  un- 
known region,  but  the  judgment  is  as  certain  as 


AND    THE    RIVER    OF    DEATH.  461 

the  present  life,  and  even  beyond  the  judgment  the 
sinner's  conscience  and  the  Word  of  God  combined, 
fill  the  unknown  future  with  definite  scenes  and 
images.  The  elements  of  retribution  are  there, 
and  also  the  subjects  of  retribution,  living, 
moving,  acting,  speaking,  suffering.  Our  blessed 
Lord,  in  that  mighty  spiritual  drama  of  the  rich  man 
and  Lazarus,  has  raised  before  us,  as  it  were,  a 
vast,  graphic,  living  transparency,  where  the  glories 
of  heaven  and  the  terrors  of  hell  flash  upon  the  soul. 
Death  stands  between  the  sinner  and  the  eternal 
world  ;  death  hands  him  over  to  the  elements  of 
eternal  retribution.  The  agonized  conscience, 
not  sprinkled  with  the  blood  of  Christ,  sees  the 
fires  of  eternity  glimmering  through  the  grim 
monarch's  shadowy  skeleton  form,  as  it  rises  and 
advances  on  the  soul's  horizon.  Death,  in  such  a 
case,  is  the  KING  OF  TERRORS.  He  marshals 
them  at  pleasure.  He  has  but  to  stand  before  the 
frame  of  the  unprepared  mortal,  and  he  curdles 
the  blood  and  blanches  the  cheek,  even  of  the 
Atheist.  He  has  but  to  touch  the  frame  of  the 
boldest  of  God's  enemies,  arid  they  are  brought 
into  desolation  as  in  a  moment ;  they  are  utterly 
consumed  with  terrors.  The  Poet  of  The  Grave 
has  depicted,  in  a  powerful  and  never-to-be-forgot- 
ten passage,  the  terrors  of  the  unprepared  soul  in 
such  a  moment. 


How  shocking  must  thy  summons  be,  O  death ! 
To  him  that  is  at  ease  in  his  possessions ; 
Who  counting  on  long  years  of  pleasure  here, 
Is  quite  unfurnished  for  that  world  to  come  ! 

In  that  dread  moment,  how  the  frantic  soul 
Raves  round  the  walls  of  her  clay  tenement, 


THE    LAND    BEULAH 

Runs  to  each  avenue,  and  shrieks  for  help, 
But  shrieks  in  vain !    How  wishfully  she  looks 
On  all  she's  leaving,  now  no  longer  hers ! 
A  little  longer,  yet  a  little  longer, 
O  might  she  stay  to  wash  away  her  stains, 
And  fit  her  for  her  passage  !    Mournful  sight ! 
Her  very  eyes  weep  blood  ;  and  every  groan 
She  heaves  is  big  with  horror.    But  the  Foe, 
Like  a  staunch  murderer,  steady  to  his  purpose, 
Pursues  her  close  through  every  lane  of  life, 
Nor  misses  once  the  track,  but  presses  on, 
Till,  forced  at  last  to  the  tremendous  verge, 
At  once  she  sinks  to  everlasting  ruin ! 

This  is  indeed  dreadful.  And  yet,  let  Christ  come 
in,  let  Christ  stand  by  the  King  of  Terrors,  and 
there  conies  a  death  of  which  there  is  no  fear, 
no  terror  connected  with  it.  There  are  souls,  on 
whose  horizon,  though  Death's  skeleton  form  comes 
striding,  the  light  from  eternity  does  but  invest  the 
form  with  glory.  It  is  rather  like  the  light  of  a  clear 
sunset  seen  through  the  bars  of  a  prison  window, 
or  through  the  foliage  of  a  tree  in  the  horizon.  It 
is  no  more  Death  the  Skeleton,  but  Death  the 
Angel,  a  messenger  of  peace,  mercy,  love  glory. 
There  are  souls  that  welcome  him,  for  he  opens 
the  prison  door,  out  of  which  they  are  to  pass 
into  a  world  of  light ;  out  of  a  prison  of  flesh, 
sin,  fear,  doubt  and  bondage,  into  a  celestial 
freedom  in  the  perfection  of  holiness  ;  into  love, 
praise,  and  blissful  adoration,  without  any  mixture 
of  sin,  any  cloud  or  shadow  of  defilement,  or  any 
thing  for  ever  and  ever  to  mar  or  change  the 
perfect  peace  and  blessedness  of  the  soul.  To 
such  souls,  Death  is  but  the  Messenger,  to  take 
them  before  the  throne  of  God  in  his  likeness,  to 
present  them  without  spot,  or  wrinkle,  or  any  such 
thing.  Death  is  Life  to  such  ;  it  is  the  being  born 


AND    THE.  RIVER    OF    DEATH.  463 

out  of  a  state  of  sinfulness,  darkness,  and  wretched- 
ness in  fallen  humanity,  into  a  condition  of  purity, 
light,  and  happiness,  in  a  City  where  the  glory  of 
God  doth  lighten  it,  and  the  Lamb  is  the  light 
thereof.  There  is  no  future  terror,  of  which  Death 
is  King,  in  such  a  case.  Dying  is  but  going  home. 
It  was  such  a  death,  of  which  Paul  spake,  when  he 
said  that  he  desired  to  depart  and  to  be  with  Christ. 
He  was  not  then  contemplating  any  images  of 
terror.  The  future  was  to  him  filled  with  a  glory, 
towards  which  his  soul  was  pressing,  and  into 
which  Death  was  to  introduce  him. 


If  you,  O  Man !  of  Death  are  bound  in  dread, 
Come  to  this  chamber,  sit  beside  this  bed. 
See  how  the  name  of  Christ,  breathed  o'er  the  heart, 
Makes  the  soul  smile  at  Death's  uplifted  dart. 

The  air  to  sense  is  close  that  fills  the  room, 
But  angel  forms  are  waving  through  the  gloom ; 
The  feeble  pulse  leaps  up,  as  'twould  expire, 
But  Christ  still  watches  the  Refiner's  fire. 

Life  comes  and  goes, — the  spirit  lingers  on ; 
"Tis  over !    No !  the  conflict's  not  quite  done ; 
For  Christ  will  work,  till  of  life's  sinful  stain 
No  spot  nor  wrinkle  on  the  soul  remain. 

He  views  his  image  now !    The  victory's  won ! 
The  last  dark  shadow  from  his  child  is  drawn. 
The  veil  is  rent  away.    Eternal  Grace  ! 
The  soul  beholds  its  Saviour  face  to  face  ! 

Is  this  Death's  seal  ?    Th'  impression,  O  how  fair ! 
Look,  what  a  radiant  smile  is  playing  there ! 
That  was  the  soul's  farewell :  the  sacred  dust 
Awaits  the  Resurrection  of  the  Just. 

Call  not  the  mourners,  when  the  Christian  dies, 
While  angels  shout  him  welcome  to  the  skies. 
Mourn  rather  for  the  living  dead  on  earth, 
Who  nothing  care  for  his  Celestial  Birth. 


464  THE    LAND    BEULAH 

Death  to  the  bedside  came,  his  prey  to  hold, — 
All  he  could  touch  was  but  the  earthly  mould  :— 
This  to  its  native  ashes  men  convey ; — 
The  freed  Soul  rises  to  Eternal  Day ! 


And  yet,  in  itself,  Death  is  the  self-same  thing 
to  the  righteous  as  to  the  wicked.  It  is  the  same 
painful,  convulsive  separation  between  soul  and 
body,  sometimes  attended  with  greater  suffering, 
sometimes  with  less,  but  always  constituting  the 
supreme  last  strife  of  agony  endurable  in  this 
mortal  tenement.  But  what  an  infinite  difference, 
when  all  the  circumstances  of  death,  all  forms  and 
processes  of  disease,  every  kind  and  degree  of 
pain  and  suffering,  are  ordered  by  the  Saviour  for 
the  good  of  the  soul ;  when  he  sits  over  this 
furnace  into  which  his  child  is  cast,  removing  the 
dross,  and  watching  for  his  own  image  !  What  an 
infinite  difference,  when  disease  and  pain  are  but 
as  graving  tools  in  his  hand,  with  which  he  is 
giving  symmetry  and  a  perfect  polish  to  the  living 
stones,  which  he  is  to  set  in  his  temple,  removing 
every  imperfection,  every  wrinkle,  every  stain ! 
Death,  in  such  a  case,  is  but  the  last  act  of  a 
Saviour's  loving  discipline  with  his  people,  the  per- 
fection and  consummation  of  his  mercy. 

Some  wicked  men  have  suffered  much  less  in 
dying,  than  some  righteous  men.  One  dieth  in  his 
full  strength,  being  wholly  at  ease  and  quiet.  Ano- 
ther dieth  in  the  bitterness  of  his  soul.  They  shall 
lie  down  alike  in  the  dust,  and  the  worms  shall 
cover  them.  It  would  be  interesting  to  draw  a 
comparison  between  the  deaths  and  the  death-beds 
of  a  number  of  the  most  remarkable  wicked  men, 


AND    RIVER   OF    DEATH.  465 

with  an  equal  number  of  the  most  remarkable 
righteous  men.  The  circumstances  of  disease, 
of  mere  material  evil,  are  much  the  same,  except 
that  as  material  evils  they  are  always  aggravated 
by  spiritual  distress ;  the  pangs  of  conscience 
giving  sharpness  to  the  pangs  of  dissolving  na- 
ture. Compare  even  the  death-beds  of  Hume, 
Voltaire,  and  Paine,  with  those  of  Edwards, 
Brainard,  Henry  Martyn,  and  Payson,  and  you 
will  find  that  there  is  not  much  to  choose  as  to  the 
physical  pain  of  dying.  Take  the  deaths  of  Herod 
arid  of  Paul,  the  one  eaten  of  worms,  consumed 
inwardly,  and  the  last  in  all  probability  crucified,  and 
there  was  about  as  much  physical  suffering  and 
terror  in  the  one  death  as  in  the  other.  Take  the 
deaths  of  Nero  and  of  John,  the  one  is  a  suicide, 
the  last  dying  quietly  at  a  hundred  years  of  age  ; 
the  pangs  of  dissolution  in  both  cases  were  pro- 
bably very  nearly  equal.  The  death  of  the  righ- 
teous is  no  more  exempt  from  physical  distress  and 
suffering,  than  that  of  the  wicked. 

Nor  is  the  physical  distress  or  suffering  that  in- 
gredient in  death,  which  men  particularly  regard  or 
fear.  In  reading  of  the  death  of  a  Christian,  how 
little  are  our  feelings  distressed  as  to  the  depth  and 
intensity  of  his  bodily  sufferings,  so  long  as  we 
have  the  conviction  that  God  was  with  him,  that 
Jesus  Christ  was  his  support.  But  in  reading  of 
the  death-sufferings  of  a  wicked  man,  or  in  wit- 
nessing such  a  death-bed,  you  are  terribly  affected 
by  the  spectacle  of  such  physical  pain.  It  is  be- 
cause the  misery  of  the  soul  is  there  ;  there  is 
nothing  in  this  latter  case  to  bear  up  the  body,  to 


466  THE  LAND  BEULAH 

proclaim  the  blessedness  of  the  immortal  part,  even 
amidst  the  suffering  of  mortality  ;  on  the  contrary, 
mortality  borrows  suffering  from  the  soul  ;  the  body 
is  doubly  tortured  in  the  hour  of  dissolution  by  the 
pangs  of  a  wounded  conscience. 

Hume  would  have  died  an  easy  death  had  his 
soul  been  at  peace  with  God,  and  resting  on  his 
Saviour,  although  the  disease  and  suffering  of  his 
body  had  remained  the  same.  As  it  was,  there  was 
that  ingredient  in  the  suffering  of  his  last  hours 
which  made  his  nurse  ever  after  refuse  attendance 
at  the  sick  bed  of  a  philosopher  !  Voltaire  would 
have  suffered  little,  even  had  his  physical  sufferings 
remained  the  same,  if  in  his  last  moments,  instead 
of  inward  wrath  of  conscience,  and  forebodings 
of.  wrath  to  come,  there  had  been  the  Christian's 
faith  and  sense  of  pardoned  sin  ;  if  instead  of 
alternate  blasphemies  and  prayers,  there  had  been 
love  to  that  Saviour,  whom  the  infidel,  amidst  the 
admiration  of  his  fellow-infidels,  had  dared  to  de- 
ride. But  the  stings  of  a  wounded  conscience 
give  a  sharpness  to  all  mortal  diseases,  that  nothing 
else  can  give,  making  even  the  common  sufferings 
of  sickness  an  intolerable  weight  of  misery. 

On  the  other  hand,  to  a  mind  at  peace  with  God, 
there  is  very  little  terror  in  physical  sufferings.  I 
had  almost  said,  there  is  very  little  pain.  Some- 
times indeed  the  dying  pains  of  a  holy  man  will  be 
so  great,  as  for  a  season  to  absorb  all  his  attention; 
but  even  then  you  feel  that  all  this  is  nothing  in 
comparison  with  the  presence  of  Christ  now,  and 
the  glory  which  shall  be  revealed.  When  Andrew 
Puller  was  dying,  he  said  to  those  around  him,  "It 


AND    THE    RIVER    OF   DEATH.  467 

seems  as  if  all  bodily  torture  were  concentrated 
in  my  frame."  That  was  but  for  a  moment,  and  it 
was  outweighed  by  the  faith  of  his  soul,  even  while 
so  concentrated  and  intense,  that  the  powers  of  his 
being  could  fix  on  nothing  else  intently.  When 
Payson  was  dying,  his  bodily  sufferings  were  what 
would  have  been  intense,  had  it  not  been  for  the 
flood  of  glory  and  happiness  with  which  his  soul 
was  filled.  His  faith  gave  even  to  suffering  a  glory. 
When  Mr.  Pearce  was  dying,  he  said,  after  a  rest- 
less night,  "  I  have  so  much  weakness  and  pain  that 
I  have  not  had  much  enjoyment ;  but  I  have  a  full 
persuasion  that  the  Lord  is  doing  all  things  well." 
Now,  here  was  a  case,  in  which  the  pain  of  dying, 
the  pain  of  the  mortal  disease,  was  so  great,  as 
materially  to  interfere  with  the  positive  enjoyment 
of  the  soul,  but  yet  it  added  no  terror;  the  pain  was 
sensibly  experienced,  but  with  such  trust  in  God 
and  such  sweet  resignation,  that  it  gave  Death,  as 
the  King  of  Terrors,  no  advantage.  But  if  this 
same  degree  of  pain  had  been  experienced  by  a 
man  without  the  consolations  of  the  Gospel,  a  man 
dying  unprepared  for  eternity,  the  anguish  of  the 
bodily  suffering  would  have  been  incalculably  more 
intense.  The  terrors  of  death  do  not  belong  neces- 
sarily to  the  pains  of  death  ;  they  do  to  the  wicked, 
but  not  to  the  righteous. 

Were  the  universe  at  the  command  of  the  soul,  it 
would  not  be  worth  a  grain  of  sand  to  a  man  dying 
without  the  consolations  of  the  Gospel.  Friends 
can  do  nothing  in  such  a  case  ;  the  strongest  affec- 
tion, though  it  be  stronger  than  death,  can  be  of  no 
avail.  But  Christ  can  do  every  thing.  The  pre- 
59 


468  THE    LAND    BEULAH 

sence  of  Christ  can  overcome  the  sense  of  pain, 
and  fill  the  soul  with  blessedness  in  the  midst  of  it. 
Instances  are  not  wanting  of  this,  even  amidst  the 
unimaginable  sufferings  of  being  burned  to  death  at 
the  stake. 

I  have  before  me  two  instances  of  this  glory  and 
power  of  Christ's  presence  in  death ;  the  one  in 
a  very  young  Christian,  the  other  in  a  saint  of 
more  advanced  age  and  experience.  When  young 
Mr.  Janeway,  in  England,  was  dying,  his  language 
was  as  follows ;  "  O  my  friends,  stand  by  and  won- 
der; come,  look  upon  a  dying  man.  What  manifes- 
tations of  rich  grace  !  If  I  were  never  to  enjoy  more 
than  this,  it  were  well  worth  all  the  torments  that 
men  and  devils  could  invent,  worth  coming  through 
even  a  hell  to  such  transcendent  joys  as  these.  If 
this  be  dying,  dying  is  sweet.  Let  no  true  Chris- 
tian ever  be  afraid  of  dying.  Christ's  smiles  and 
visits,  sure  they  would  turn  hell  into  heaven.  Oh 
that  you  did  but  see  and  feel  what  I  do !  Come  and 
behold  a  dying  man  more  cheerful  than  ever  you 
saw  any  healthful  man  in  the  midst  of  his  sweetest 
enjoyments."  "  Methinks  I  stand,  as  it  were,  with 
one  foot  in  heaven,  and  the  other  upon  earth. 
Methinks  I  hear  the  melody  of  heaven,  and  by  faith 
I  see  the  angels  waiting  to  carry  my  soul  to  the 
bosom  of  Jesus,  and  I  shall  be  forever  with  the 
Lord  in  glory.  And  who  can  choose  but  rejoice 
in  all  this  V '  The  pangs  of  death  in  this  man 
were  strong,  but  the  exceeding  and  eternal  weight 
of  glory  was  so  much  stronger,  that  it  quite  absorbed 
his  soul,  and  filled  him  with  triumphant  praises. 
Now  what  can  an  unbeliever  do  with  such  a 


AND    THE    RIVER    OF  DEATH.  469 

case  ?  Here  is  no  opportunity  for  enthusiasm  or 
mistake  from  animal  sympathy  or  excitement,  nor 
any  external  sources  of  support  or  happiness  what- 
ever, nor  any  anodyne  that  can  overcome  the  pre- 
sent sense  of  pain,  or  give  buoyancy  to  the  spirits, 
or  provide  material  for  the  dreams  of  a  youthful 
imagination,  or  set  it  in  play  in  the  presence  of  the 
King  of  Terrors.  To  the  blind  eye  and  gloomy 
reasoning  sense  of  unbelief,  here  is  nothing  but 
pain,  weakness,  darkness,  relinquishment  of  all  the 
blessings  of  life,  and  a  blank,  drear  vacancy  in 
prospect.  And  yet,  there  is  a  mysterious,  unseen, 
supernatural  presence  and  power,  a  power  of  life 
and  joy  so  upspringing,  deep,  and  inextinguishable, 
so  certain,  sensible,  and  ecstatic,  that  this  dying 
man,  convulsed  with  pain,  can  say,  If  I  were  never 
to  enjoy  more  than  this,  it  were  well  worth  all  the 
torments  that  men  and  devils  could  invent,  worth 
coming  through  even  a  hell,  to  such  transcendent 
joys  as  these  !  And  this  is  CHRIST  !  This  it  is  to 
have  a  SAVIOUR  !  This  is  that  Saviour's  omnipo- 
tence and  mercy  !  Gloomy,  self-torturing,  unhappy 
infidel !  what  hast  thou  to  say  to  this  ! 

Our  second  instance  is  the  case  of  Dr.  Payson. 
He  once  said,  in  his  last  illness  :  "  I  have  suffered 
twenty  times, — yes,  to  speak  within  bounds, — 
twenty  times  as  much  as  I  could  in  being  burnt  at 
the  stake,  while  my  joy  in  God  so  abounded,  as  to 
render  my  sufferings  not  only  tolerable,  but  wel- 
come. The  sufferings  of  this  present  time  are  not 
worthy  to  be  compared  with  the  glory  that  shall  be 
revealed.  God  is  my  all  in  all.  While  he  is 
present  with  me,  no  event  can  in  the  least  diminish 


470  THE    LAND    BEULAH 

my  happiness ;  and  were  the  whole  world  at  my 
feet,  trying  to  minister  to  my  comfort,  they  could 
not  add  one  drop  to  the  cup."  On  another  occa- 
sion he  said,  "  Death  comes  every  night  and  stands 
at  my  bedside  in  the  form  of  terrible  convulsions, 
every  one  of  which  threatens  to  separate  the  soul 
from  the  body.  These  continue  to  grow  worse 
and  worse,  until  every  bone  is  almost  dislocated 
with  pain,  leaving  me  with  the  certainty  that  I  shall 
have  it  all  to  endure  again  the  next  night.  Yet, 
while  my  body  is  thus  tortured,  the  soul  is  perfectly 
happy,  perfectly  happy  and  peaceful,  more  happy 
than  I  can  possibly  express  to  you.  I  lie  here, 
and  feel  these  convulsions  extending  higher  and 
higher,  but  my  soul  is  filled  with  joy  unspeakable. 
I  seem  to  swim  in  a  flood  of  glory,  which  God  pours 
down  upon  me." 

This  is  wonderful.  And  so  the  dying  Evarts 
exclaimed,  borne  down,  or  rather  I  should  say, 
borne  up  by  such  a  weight  of  glory.  "  Wonderful ! 
wonderful !"  But  here  again  there  is  nothing 
external,  nothing  visible,  no  earthly  thing  conceiv- 
able, as  a  source  of  such  joy  amidst  suffering. 
These  are  the  consolations  of  Christ,  and  in  the 
presence  of  these  infidelity  stands  stunned,  aghast, 
and  silent.  They  are  riot  always  granted  so  abun- 
dantly, in  such  triumphant,  overpowering  measure, 
even  to  the  Lord's  most  faithful  servants  ;  but  if 
need  be,  they  are,  But  even  a  little  measure  of 
them,  a  glimpse  of  the  Saviour's  countenance,  and 
an  assurance  of  his  mercy,  is  enough  to  deprive 
death  of  his  sting,  to  take  away  all  his  terrors,  and 
to  swallow  him  up  in  victory.  "  O  Death,  where  is 


AND    THE    RIVER   OF    DEATH.  471 

thy  sting?  O  Grave,  where  is  thy  victory?  The 
sting  of  death  is  sin,  and  the  strength  of  sin  is  the 
law  ;  but  thanks  be  to  God,  who  giveth  us  the  vic- 
tory, through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ!" 

It  might,  on  some  accounts,  seem  strange  that 
so  few,  if  any,  death-scenes  of  the  apostles  or  pri- 
mitive disciples  are  left  on  record  by  divine  inspira- 
tion. They  must  have  been  eminently  animating 
and  instructive.  But  their  whole  life  was  a  living 
death ;  they  died  daily,  and  when  we  see  them 
daily  serving  Christ,  and  daily  desiring  to  depart 
and  to  be  with  Christ,  the  death-scene  could  add 
little  to  this  testimony.  St.  Paul  has  given  us,  at 
the  close  of  the  fifteenth  chapter  of  the  first  epistle 
to  the  Corinthians,  and  also  throughout  the  eighth 
chapter  of  the  epistle  to  the  Romans,  a  picture  be- 
forehand of  the  blessedness  of  Christ's  servants  in 
death.  And  the  death-scene  of  the  first  martyr  is 
given  us  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  with  heaven 
opened,  and  the  glory  of  God  visible,  and  Jesus 
standing  on  the  right  hand  of  God  ;  and  in  the 
view  of  this  vision,  the  dying  Stephen  is  praying 
for  his  murderers.  This  was  an  example  for  all 
that  should  come  after,  both  of  the  divine  consola- 
tions, of  which  they  might  be  sure  in  the  hour  of 
suffering  and  death,  and  of  that  divine  spirit  of 
forgiveness,  in  the  exercise  of  which  they  must  glo- 
rify their  Saviour. 

That  the  divine  glory  in  the  death  of  Christians 
is  the  object  of  our  Lord's  particular  regard,  may  be 
gathered  from  what  is  said  when  Jesus  gave  an 
intimation  concerning  the  death  of  Peter,  in  one  of 
his  last  interviews  with  his  disciples  ;  "  This  spake 


472  THE    LAND    BEULAH 

he,  signifying  by  what  death  he  should  glorify 
God."  This  too  is  partly  the  meaning  of  that  ex- 
pression in  the  116th  Psalm,  "  Precious  in  the  sight 
of  the  Lord  is  the  death  of  his  saints."  Every 
peaceful,  every  triumphant  death-bed  is  a  com- 
mentary on  this  passage  ;  for  the  glory,  the  faithful- 
ness, the  mercy  and  love  of  the  Saviour,  and  the 
love  of  his  dear  disciples  to  him,  stronger  than 
death,  and  the  greatness  of  his  atoning-  sacrifice, 
and  the  power  of  his  blood  to  cleanse  from  sin  and 
give  peace  to  the  conscience,  are  here  exhibited,  as 
they  are  nowhere  else.  Here  the  cross  shines  in 
its  saving  power  and  glory.  Every  precious  thing 
in  the  character  of  Christ  and  the  scheme  of  redemp- 
tion, all  the  lovely  attributes  of  God,  and  the  un- 
speakable blessedness  of  those  who  have  their  por- 
tion in  him,  are  here  manifested  together.  All  the 
lessons  of  the  law  and  the  Gospel  seem  brought  to 
a  point ;  but  above  all,  the  preciousness  of  Christ 
to  the  soul  that  rests  on  him  is  so  illustrated,  and 
the  necessity  of  faith  so  demonstrated,  that  it  seems 
as  if  the  sight  of  one  such  death-scene,  if  all  men 
could  behold  it,  would  draw  all  men  to  the  Saviour. 
It  does  make  all  men  exclaim,  Let  me  die  the 
death  of  the  righteous,  and  let  my  last  end  be  like 
his! 

Let  us  now  turn  the  light  of  Death  upon  our  own 
life,  for  Death  is  the  great  Enlightener,  in  whose 
presence  we  see  things  as  they  really  are,  all  delu- 
sions being  withdrawn,  all  dreams  having  vanished, 
and  an  overpowering  flood  of  light  being  thrown 
back  upon  the  vanities'  through  which  we  have  been 
treading.  Let  us  flee  to  Christ,  and,  by  his  grace, 


AND    THE    RIVER   OF   DEATH.  473 

live  the  life  of  the  righteous,  and  so  our  last  end 
shall  be  like  his  !     Of  true  peace  in  death  there  is 
no  possibility  but  by  being  IN  CHRIST  ;   but  even 
the  peace  of  a  true  Christian  may  be  greatly  ob- 
scured and  troubled  if  he  has  been  willing  to  live 
at  a  distanc^  from  his  Saviour.     But  where  the 
soul  is  in  Christ,  relying  on  his  precious  blood  and 
righteousness,   and   the   affections  are   habitually 
fixed  upon   the   things   which   are  above,  where 
Christ  sitteth  on  the  right  hand  of  God,  then  indeed 
dying  is  but  going  home  ;   and  such  blessedness  is 
worth  all  the  daily  watchfulness  in  life,  that  can 
possibly  be  given  for  it.     Such  blessedness  makes 
the  soul  live  on  the  borders   of  Heaven,   in  the 
Land   Beulah ;  for  to  be  in  the  Land  Beulah  is 
to  be  spiritually  minded,  and  that  is  the  secret  of 
all  the  blessed  visions  to  be  seen  in  that  land.   To  be 
spiritually  minded  is  life  and  peace  ;  and  they  who 
are  eminently  so,  are  eminently  happy.    Nor  is  any 
labor  to   be  accounted  painful,  in  comparison  to 
the  sweetness  of  so  resting  upon  God.     The  way 
to  such  blessedness  may  be  trying,  the  steps  to  be 
taken  may  cost  much  self-denial,  but  the  results  are 
unspeakably  glorious  and  delightful.     Nor  is  there 
any  happiness  to  be  compared  with  that  which  is 
enjoyed  by  a   growing  Christian,  a  saint,  whose 
life  is  truly  hid  with  Christ  in  God.     The  happi- 
ness of  walking  with  God  daily  is  very  great.     It 
is  blessed  to  breathe    after  God,  to    hunger  and 
thirst    after    righteousness,  and    to    long    for  the 
communication  of  his  Spirit.     It  is  blessed  to  feel 
with  the  Psalmist  that  the  soul  thirsteth  for  God, 
thrice  blessed  to  cry  out,  As  the  hart  panteth  after 


474  THE    LAND    BEULAH 

the  water-brook,  so  panteth  my  soul  after  thee,  O 
God! 

And  if  the  experience  of  such  desires  is  blessed, 
much  more  is  the  fruition  of  them,  when  God 
reveals  himself  to  the  soul  that  waiteth  on  him. 
Blessed  are  they  that  do  hunger  arftl  thirst  after 
righteousness,  for  they  shall  be  filled.  A  watchful, 
earnest  attention  to  the  increase  of  one's  personal 
piety  makes  every  part  of  Christian  experience  ani- 
mated and  delightful.  There  is  a  divine  relish  in 
all  the  exercises  of  the  Christian  life,  a  savour  of 
heaven,  a  foretaste  of  the  enjoyment  of  the  saints 
in  glory.  The  Word  of  God  is  precious,  the  duty 
of  prayer  is  precious,  the  vision  of  faith  is  clear 
and  strong,  and  heavenly  realities  come  in  with 
vivid  power  upon  the  soul,  and  the  peace  of  God, 
which  passeth  all  understanding,  keeps  the  heart 
and  mind  through  Christ  Jesus. 

The  secret  of  the  Lord  is  with  them  that  fear 
him,  and  he  will  show  them  his  covenant.  He 
will  hold  it  up  to  their  view,  unfold  its  rich  blessings 
in  their  sight,  and  show  them  that  they  have  a  part 
and  a  place  in  it.  He  will  open  and  expound  its 
glories,  its  glories  of  wisdom  and  knowledge  in  the 
revelation  of  Christ,  its  glories  of  spiritual  things, 
into  which  the  angels  desire  to  look,  its  glories  in 
the  purchased  possession  of  the  saints  and  the 
riches  of  their  heavenly  inheritance,  and  the  won- 
ders of  that  infinite  love,  by  which  such  celes- 
tial, everlasting  treasures  were  procured.  All  this, 
and  infinitely  more  than  can  be  described,  is  the 
heritage  of  them  that  fear  the  Lord,  that  rest  upon 
the  Saviour,  and  who  earnestly  endeavour,  renoun- 


AND   THE    RIVER   OF   DEATH.  475 

cing  every  sin,  to  maintain  daily  that  close  walk 
with  him  which  he  requires,  and  to  follow  on  after 
that  perfection,  which  he  has  exhibited  as  the  only 
right  standard  of  the  soul. 

Is  not  this  a  life  to  be  chosen,  to  be  greatly  de- 
sired, to  be  labored  after  with  exceeding  great  dili- 
gence, perseverance  and  earnestness  ?  Is  it  not 
worth  a  great  deal  of  self-denial  and  fervent  energy 
in  prayer,  and  a  great  deal  of  time  given  "to  the 
Word  of  God,  and  to  all  the  secret  exercises  of  the 
Christian  life  ?  Is  it  not  worth  a  great  many  sacri- 
fices of  external  ease  and  comfort,  if  that  were  ne- 
cessary, and  of  external  business,  if  that  presses 
too  urgently  ?  Is  it  not  worth  every  thing,  and  are 
not  all  things  else  laid  in  the  balance  with  it  empty 
and  worthless  ?  Is  it  not  the  pearl  of  great  price 
which  he  that  is  wise  will  readily  sell  all  that  he 
hath  to  be  master  of;  the  one  thing  needful,  for 
the  attainment  of  which  all  other  things  may  well 
be  given  up,  and  forgotten  as  of  no  moment? 

Yea,  it  is  the  kingdom  of  God  and  his  righteous- 
ness, without  which  the  universe  cannot  make  you 
happy,  but  with  which  all  things  else  shall  be 
added  unto  you.  Give  what  God  will,  without  that 
you  are  poor,  but  with  that  rich,  take  what  he  will 
away.  For  when  he  gives  himself,  he  gives  all 
blessings.  Who  would  not  rather  be  the  poorest 
wanderer  that  walks  the  earth,  the  most  down- 
trodden and  despised  outcast  of  creation,  and  have 
his  daily  meals  at  God's  spiritual  table,  his  daily 
walks  with  his  Redeemer,  his  daily  visits  of  refresh- 
ment at  the  full  fountain  of  his  love,  than  without 
that  refreshment  to  possess  the  riches  of  all  king- 
60 


476  THE    LAND    BETJLAH 

doms,  or  be  the  worshipped  idol  of  the  world  . 
Yea,  who  would  not  rather  be  perishing  for  want  of 
daily  bread,  or  begging  from  door  to  door,  if  that 
were  necessary,  and  yet  daily  faithful  in  prayer, 
growing  in  grace,  and  having  his  life  hid  with  Christ 
in  God,  than  surrounded  with  all  affluence  and 
at  ease  amidst  all  luxuries,  and  yet  living  in  that 
worldly  frame  and  at  that  distance  from  the  Saviour, 
and  in  that  gloomy  coldness  of  spirit,  which  worldly 
prosperity,  without  great  secret  diligence  in  walk- 
ing with  God,  so  invariably  produces  ! 

The  close  of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress  is  rendered 
exceedingly  instructive,  solemn,  and  admonitory  by 
the  fate  of  Ignorance.  It  is  as  if  the  writer  had 
interposed  a  check  to  the  gushing  fulness  of  our 
feelings  excited  by  the  heavenly  splendors  of  the 
preceding  description,  and  had  said  to  us,  as  we 
were  thinking  ourselves  almost  in  Heaven  before- 
hand, "  Beware  !" 

"  While  I  was  gazing  at  all  these  things,"  says 
the  Dreamer,  "  I  turned  my  head  to  look  back,  and 
saw  Ignorance  come  up  to  the  river  side ;  but  he 
soon  got  over,  and  that  without  half  the  difficulty 
which  the  other  two  men  met  with.  For  it  happen- 
ed that  there  was  then  in  that  place,  one  Vain- 
hope,  a  ferry-man,  that  with  his  boat  helped  him 
over ;  so  he,  as  the  others  I  saw,  did  ascend  the 
hill  to  come  up  to  the  gate  ;  only  he  came  alone, 
neither  did  meet  with  any  the  least  encouragement. 
When  he  was  come  up  to  the  gate,  he  looked  up 
to  the  writing  that  was  above,  and  then  began  to 
knock,  supposing  that  entrance  should  have  been 
quickly  administered  to  him  ;  but  he  was  asked  by 


AND    THE    RIVER  OF   DEATH.  477 

the  men  that  looked  over  the  top  of  the  gate, 
Whence  come  you  ?  and  what  would  you  have  ? 
He  answered,  I  have  eat  and  drank  in  the  presence 
of  the  King,  and  he  has  taught  in  our  streets. 
Then  they  asked  him  for  his  certificate,  that  they 
might  go  in  and  show  it  to  the  King.  So  he 
fumbled  in  his  bosom  for  one  and  found  none. 
Then,  said  they,  Have  you  none  ?  But  the  man 
answered  never  a  word.  So  they  told  the  King  ; 
but  he  would  not  come  down  to  see  him,  but  com- 
manded the  two  Shining  Ones  that  conducted 
Christian  and  Hopeful  to  the  City,  to  go  out  and 
take  Ignorance,  and  bind  him  hand  and  foot,  and 
have  him  away.  Then  they  took  him  up  and 
carried  him  through  the  air,  to  the  door  that  I  saw 
in  the  side  of  the  hill,  and  put  him  in  there.  Then 
I  saw  that  there  was  a  way  to  Hell  even  from  the 


Gates  of  Heaven,  as  well  as  from  the  City  of  De- 


#om 
of 


struction." 


Now  can  any  thing  be  more  solemn  than  this  ? 
You  will  remember  that  this  man  Ignorance  was 
ignorant  both  of  himself  and  of  his  Saviour,  and 
yet  he  had  been  long  a  traveller  towards  the  Celes- 
tial City.  His  case  is  described  by  the  Saviour, 
with  the  addition  that  "  Many  shall  say  unto  me 
in  that  day,  Lord,  Lord,  open  unto  us  ;  to  whom  I 
will  say,  Depart  from  me,  I  never  knew  you,  ye 
that  work  iniquity."  Now  may  God  in  mercy  keep 
us  from  such  self-deception !  Nevertheless,  it 
would  be  nothing  strange,  should  it  be  found  in 
the  great  day  of  trial,  that  this  age  was  dis- 
tinguished as  an  age  of  self-deception  ;  and  if  we 
take  not  great  heed  to  ourselves,  we  shall  glide  on 


478  THE    LAND    BEULAH 

with  the  same  general  current.  And  it  is  the 
saddest,  most  dreadful  mistake  that  ever  man  fell 
into,  to  dream  on  of  Heaven,  only  to  awake  and 
find  himself  in  Hell.  We  had  better  do  any  thing 
most  hard,  be  pressed  with  the  greatest  evils,  en- 
compassed with  the  most  painful  difficulties,  endure 
all  labors,  undergo  all  suffering,  practice  every 
self-denial  of  the  good  soldier  of  Jesus  Christ, 
than  remain  in  such  danger.  What  is  it  not  worth 
to  be  unalterably  safe  in  Christ,  to  have  constant 
experience  of  his  preciousness,  to  be  making  con- 
stant additions  to  our  knowledge  of  him,  to  be 
nourished  daily  by  his  grace,  and  to  be  animated 
constantly  by  his  love  ?  Oh  if  we  had  any  thing 
in  this  world  of  a  value  in  the  least  to  be  compared 
with  the  blessedness  of  a  well-grounded  hope  in 
Christ,  vje  would  riot  leave  it  for  a  single  day  in 
such  rislt  as  we  do  our  hope  of  Heaven,  by 
living  at  such  a  distance  from  our  Saviour. 

What  shadows  we  are,  and  what  shadows  we 
pursue  !  absorbed  with  vanities  !  a  vision  made  for 
Eternity,  blinded  by  the  shadows  of  Time  !  A  soul 
made  for  God,  and  the  boundless  realities  of  ever- 
lasting ages,  absorbed  with  earth,  and  the  poor 
worthless  trifles  of  transitory  years  !  Is  this  the 
manner  in  which  Christ  would  have  his  pupils 
live  ?  Or  is  the  prize  of  Heaven's  eternal  inheri- 
tance of  so  little  value,  that  we  can  run  the  hazard 
of  losing  it  with  so  little  concern  I  Ah,  no  !  The 
crown  of  righteousness  is  not  of  so  little  worth. 
The  Kingdom  of  Heaven  suffereth  violence,,  and 
the  violent  take  it  by  force. 

Nor  is  there   any  safety  but  in  Christ,  and  in  a 


AND    THE    RIVER   OF    DEATH.  479 

constant  effort  after  an  increase  of  that  holiness, 
with  which  alone  the  soul  can  be  fitted  to  overcome 
the  dangers  of  its  mortal  pilgrimage,  or  to  enjoy 
the  crown  laid  up  in  heaven.  There  is  safety 
where  Christ  is.  There  is  safety  where  there  is 
watchfulness  and  growth  in  grace.  There  is  safety 
where  there  is  much  secret  prayer.  There  is  safety 
in  giving  all  diligence  to  make  your  calling  and 
election  sure.  There  is  safety  in  lying  low  at  the 
feet  of  the  Saviour.  There  is  safety  and  blessed- 
ness unspeakable,  even  here,  in  a  world  of  dark- 
ness and  trial,  amidst  temptations  and  dangers. 
There  is  safety  and  blessedness  now,  there  is  tri- 
umphant glory  at  the  close,  in  so  walking  with 
Christ,  so  resting  on  him,  so  pursuing  his  pil- 
grimage. 

And  then  the  usefulness  which  is  the  result  of 
all  this  !  For  there  is  no  picture  more  lovely,  than 
of  that  external  activity,  which  grows  out  of  inward 
holiness.  A  zeal  that  is  the  result  of  secret  hu- 
mility, gentleness,  prayer,  love  to  Christ,  sorrow 
for  sin,  is  ever  blessed  and  successful.  The  world 
even  of  hardened  opposers  bow  to  so  lovely  a 
spirit  as  that  which  Henry  Martyn  and  Harlan 
Page  exhibited.  It  is  a  spirit  which  grows  out  of 
secret  faithfulness  in  the  Christian  life.  Let  any 
disciple  dwell  with  Christ  in  secret,  and  that  disci- 
ple will  assuredly  be  like  unto  Christ  in  public.  Let 
hinx prayerfully,  anxiously,  weepingly,  attend  to  his 
own  private  growth  in  grace,  let  him  make  the 
increase  of  his  personal  holiness  a  steadfast  object, 
and  the  fruits  of  holiness  will  presently  appear. 
While  he  is  watching  and  praying,  and  watering 


480  THE    LAND    BEULAH 

the  plant  in  his  own  heart  with  tears,  the  tree 
will  be  growing,  with  green  leaves,  and  fair 
perpetual  blossoms,  and  ripe,  rich  fruit,  to  the 
admiration  and  benefit  of  every  beholder. 

It  is  a  blessed  life,  but  a  close  how  transcen- 
dently  glorious,  which  we  have  been  tracing  in  this 
precious  book.  Looking  at  its  close,  every  man 
wishes  to  enter  on  just  such  a  pilgrimage.  Let  us 
then  stand  at  the  Gates  of  the  Celestial  City,  as 
they  are  flung  wide  open  to  admit  the  transfigured 
Pilgrims,  and  then,  with  the  light  shining  on  us, 
let  us  turn  to  the  prayerful  patient  prosecution  of 
our  own  earthly  pilgrimage,  our  own  work  for 
Christ.  "Now  just  as  the  gates  were  opened  to  let 
in  the  men,  I  looked  in  after  them,  and  behold  the 
City  shone  like  the  sun ;  the  streets  also  were 
paved  with  gold,  and  in  them  walked  many  men 
with  crowns  on  their  heads,  palms  in  their  hands, 
and  golden  harps  to  sing  praises  withal.  There 
were  also  of  them  that  had  wings  ;  and  they  an- 
swered one  another  without  intermission,  saying, 
Holy,  holy,  holy  is  the  Lord.  And  after  that,  they 
shut  up  the  Gates  ;  which,  when  I  had  seen,  I 
wished  myself  among  them." 

Turn  now,  dear  fellow  pilgrim,  animated  and 
encouraged  on  thy  way.  Thou  hast  heard  the 
songs  of  the  redeemed  ;  in  the  Apocalypse  thou 
hast  gone  with  John  into  the  Celestial  City  ;  in  the 
Pilgrim's  Progress  thou  hast  wished  thyself  with 
Bunyan  among  the  crowned  and  shining  ones,  that 
cry,  Holy !  Holy !  Holy !  Go  then,  and  be  faith- 
ful. Live  in  and  upon  Christ.  Knock  and  weep 
and  watch  and  pray ;  but  in  all  thy  darkness,  (and 


AND    THE    RIVER    OF  DEATH. 

darkness  thou  mayst  have  to  encounter,)  never  let 
the  light  of  this  Vision  be  forgotten. 

Hie  thee  on  thy  quiet  way, 

Patient  watch  the  breaking  dawn : 
For  the  shadows  flee  away, 

And  the  night  will  soon  be  gone. 

Thy  pilgrimage  lies  through  the  wilderness,  a  wil- 
derness indeed  ;  but  the  dear  path  to  Christ's 
abode  is  there,  and  His  light  is  shining.  No  pil- 
grim's rest  is  in  this  world,  but  there  is  a  REST  that 
remaineth  for  the  people  of  God.  Here  we  have 
no  continuing  city,  but  we  seek  one  to  come,  a  city 
which  hath  foundations,  whose  Builder  and  Maker 
is  God.  Go,  then,  on  thy  way,  singing  as  thou 
goest,— 

How  happy  is  the  Pilgrim's  lot, 
How  free  from  every  anxious  thought, 

From  worldly  hope  and  fear ! 
Confined  to  neither  court  nor  cell, 
His  soul  disdains  on  earth  to  dwell, 

He  only  sojourns  here. 

This  happiness  in  part  is  mine ; 
Already  saved  from  low  design, 

From  every  creature-love ! 
Blessed  with  the  scorn  of  finite  good, 
My  soul  is  lightened  of  its  load, 

And  seeks  the  things  above. 

The  things  eternal  I  pursue, 
A  happiness  beyond  the  view 

Of  those  that  beastly  pant 
For  things  by  nature  felt  and  seen ; 
Their  honors,  wealth,  and  pleasures  mean, 

I  neither  have  nor  want. 

No  foot  of  land  do  I  possess ; 
No  cottage  in  this  wilderness; 

A  poor  way -faring  man ; 
I  lodge  awhile  in  tents  below, 
Or  gladly  wander  to  and  fro, 

Till  I  my  Canaan  gain. 


482  THE    LAND    BEULAH,    ETC* 

Nothing  on  earth  I  call  my  own ; 
A  stranger  to  the  world,  unknown, 

I  all  their  goods  despise  : 
I  trample  on  their  whole  delight, 
And  seek  a  city  out  of  sight, 

A  city  in  the  skies. 

There  is  my  house  and  portion  fair ; 
My  treasure  and  my  heart  are  there, 

And  my  abiding  home ; 
For  me  my  elder  brethren  stay, 
And  angels  beckon  me  away, 

And  Jesus  bids  me  come ! 


BLESSING,  AND  HONOR,  AND  GLORY,  AND  POWER, 
BE  UNTO  HIM  THAT  S1TTETH  UPON  THE  THRONE, 
AND  UNTO  THE  LAMB  FOR  EVER  AND  EVER  ! 


CHRISTIANA,    MERCY. 


AND 


THE     CHILDREN. 


Comparison  between  the  First  and  Second  Parts  of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress. — Cheerful- 
ness of  the  Second  Part— Beauty  of  its  delineation  of  the  female  character.— Its 
great  variety. — Characters  of  Mr.  Great-heart  and  Standfast. — Character  of  Mr. 
Fearing. — Instructive  lessons  from  the  Enchanted  Ground. — Reigning  traits  of  the 
Pilgrimage  as  delineated  by  Bunyan. — Closing  lesson. 

IF  only  the  Second  Part  of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress 
had  been  written,  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether 
it  would  not  have  been  regarded  in  a  higher  light 
than  it  is  now.  The  First  Part  is  so  superior  to 
the.Second,  that  this  loses  in  the  comparison,  and 
gains  not  so  much  admiration  as  it  really  deserves. 
Just  so,  the  Paradise  Regained  would  have  been 
esteemed  a  nobler  Poem,  had  it  not  stood  after  the 
Paradise  Lost,  the  splendor  of  Milton's  genius 
in  the  first  effort,  quite  eclipsing  its  milder  radiance 
in  the  second.  Yet  the  Second  Part  of  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress  is  full  of  instruction  and  beauty,  and  ex- 
hibits varieties  of  the  Christian  Life  delineated 
with  such  truth  both  to  nature  and  grace,  that 
though  there  is  less  elevation  both  in  thought  and 
style,  and  more  familiarity  and  homeliness,  we  are 
still  delighted  with  our  journeyings,  and  love  to 
listen  to  the  voice  of  our  accustomed  teacher 
61 


484  CHRISTIANA,    MERCY, 

There  is  not  such  purity  and  severity  of  taste,  not 
such  glowing  fire  of  sentiment  and  feeling,  not 
such  point  and  condensation,  not  such  unity  and 
power,  in  the  Second  Part  as  in  the  First.  The 
conversations  do  not  possess  the  same  richness  and 
fulness  of  meaning,  nor  the  same  deep  solemn 
blissful  tones  of  warning  and  of  heaven ;  there  is 
sometimes  almost  all  the  difference  that  is  found 
between  the  garrulity  of  men  at  ease,  and  the 
earnest,  thoughtful  talk  of  men  pondering  great 
themes  and  set  upon  great  enterprises.  Not  that 
the  journey  ever  ceases  to  be  the  Christian  pilgri- 
mage, but  it  becomes  so  very  sociable,  and  at  times 
so  merry  and  gossiping,  that  it  almost  passes  into 
comedy. 

Perhaps  the  Second  Part  of  this  pilgrimage 
comes  nearer  to  the  ordinary  experience  of  the 
great  multitude  of  Christians,  than  the  First  Part ; 
and  this  may  have  been  Bunyan's  intention.  The 
First  Part  shows,  as  in  Christian,  Faithful  and  Hope- 
ful, the  great  examples  and  strong  lights  of  this 
pilgrimage  ;  it  is  as  if  Paul  and  Luther  were  pas- 
sing over  the  scene.  The  Second  Part  shows  a 
variety  of  Pilgrims,  whose  stature  and  experience 
are  more  on  a  level  with  our  own.  The  First  Part 
is  more  severe,  sublime,  inspiring  ;  the  Second  Part 
is  more  soothing  and  comforting.  The  First  Part 
has  deep  and  awful  shadows  mingled  with  its  light, 
terribly  instructive,  and  like  warnings  from  hell 
and  the  grave.  The  Second  Part  is  more  con- 
tinually and  uninterruptedly  cheerful,  full  of  good 
nature  and  pleasantry,  and  showing  the  pilgrimage 
in  lights  and  shades  that  are  common  to  weaker 
Christians. 


AND    THE    CHILDREN.  485 

So  there  is  a  sweet  tone  and  measure  of  gentle 
ness  and  tenderness,  in  accordance  with  that  pas- 
sage, "  Lift  up  the  hands  which  hang  down,  and 
the  feeble  knees,  and  make  straight  paths  for  your 
feet,  lest  that  which  is  lame  be  turned  out  of  the 
way  ;  but  rather  let  it  be  healed."  We  have  before 
us  a  company  of  the  maimed,  the  halt,  the  lame, 
the  blind,  and  a  merry  party  it  is,  after  all,  through 
the  magic  of  faith  and  Christian  sympathy.  Here 
are  Mr.  Ready-to-halt,  Mr.  Feeble-mind,  Mr. 
Despondency,  and  his  daughter  Much-afraid,  and 
others  of  like  frame  and  mould,  as  well  as  old 
father  Honest,  resolute  Mr.  Standfast,  discreet 
Christiana  and  the  lovely  Mercy.  Here  are  canes, 
crutches  and  decrepitude,  as  well  as  young  limbs, 
well  set  sinews,  and  fresh,  elastic,  tripping  feet  ot 
childhood.  The  Canterbury  Tales,  themselves, 
have  scarcely  a  greater  variety  in  their  pilgrimage. 
And  all  these  characters  are  touched  with  great 
originality  and  power  of  coloring.  They  are  sepa- 
rate, individual,  graphic  portraitures  of  classes. 

Perhaps  the  most  delightful  portion  of  the  Second 
Dream  of  Bunyan,  is  its  sweet  representation  of 
the  female  character.  There  never  were  two  more 
attractive  beings  drawn,  than  Christiana  and 
Mercy ;  as  different  from  each  other  as  Christian 
and  Hopeful,  and  yet  equally  pleasing  in  their 
natural  traits  of  character,  and,  under  the  influence 
of  divine  grace,  each  of  them  reflecting  the  light 
of  heaven  in  an  original  and  lovely  variety.  His 
own  conception  of  what  constitutes  a  bright  exam- 
ple of  beauty  and  consistency  of  character  in  a 
Christian  Woman,  Bunyan  has  here  given  us,  as  well 


486  CHRISTIANA,    MERCY, 

as  in  his  first  Dream  the  model  of  steadfast  excel- 
lence in  a  Christian  Man.  The  delineation,  in  both 
Christiana  and  Mercy,  is  eminently  beautiful.  We 
have,  in  these  characters,  his  own  ideal  of  the  do- 
mestic virtues,  and  his  own  conception  of  a  well 
ordered  Christian  family's  domestic  happiness. 

I  know  not  why  we  may  not  suppose  this  pic- 
ture to  have  been  drawn  from  the  experience  of 
his  own  household,  as  well  as  that  the  picture 
of  Christian  in  the  first  part  was  taken  from  his 
own  personal  experience  ;  and  if  so,  he  possessed 
a  lovely  wife  and  a  lovely  family.  Wherever  he 
may  have  formed  his  own  notions  of  female  loveli- 
ness and  excellence,  he  has,  in  the  combination  of 
them  in  the  Second  Part  of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress, 
presented  two  characters  of  such  winning  modesty 
and  grace,  such  confiding  truth  and  frankness, 
such  simplicity  and  artlessness,  such  cheerfulness 
and  pleasantness,  such  native  good  sense  and 
Christian  discretion,  such  sincerity,  gentleness  and 
tenderness,  that  nothing  could  be  more  delightful. 

The  matronly  virtues  of  Christiana,  and  the 
maidenly  qualities  of  Mercy,  are  alike  pleasing 
and  appropriate.  There  is  a  mixture  of  timidity 
and  frankness  in  Mercy,  which  is  as  sweet  in  itself 
as  it  is  artlessly  and  unconsciously  drawn  ;  and  in 
Christiana  we  discover  the  very  characteristics  that 
can  make  the  most  lovely  feminine  counterpart, 
suitable  to  the  stern  and  lofty  qualities  of  her  hus- 
band. The  characters  of  her  boys,  too,  are  beauti- 
fully delineated,  with  her  own  watchfulness  over 
them  as  a  mother.  The  catechising  of  the  children 
is  full  of  instruction,  and  every  thing  shows  the 


AND    THE    CHILDREN.  487 

principles  of  a  good  Christian  education.  The  boys 
themselves  are  children  of  good  sense  and  affec- 
tionate dispositions  ;  and  on  the  whole,  this  domes- 
tic picture  of  a  family  travelling  towards  heaven  is 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  instructive  delinea- 
tions drawn  by  Bunyan's  genius. 

There  are  two  traits  that  ought  to  be  particu- 
larly noted,  which  are,  first,  the  uninterrupted 
Christian  cheerfulness  of  the  whole  party,  so  that 
there  is  "  music  in  the  heart,  music  in  the  house, 
and  music  in  heaven,"  because  of  them ;  and  se- 
cond, the  exquisite  beauty  of  affectionate  kindness 
and  care  exercised  towards  them,  the  compassion- 
ate and  joyful  tenderness  with  which  they  were 
received ;  and  the  open-hearted  hospitality  and 
love  with  which  they  are  helped  forward  on 
their  journey.  The  "  meekness  and  gentleness 
of  Christ,"  with  the  "love  of  the  Spirit,"  and 
the  lowly  sweetness  of  the  Gospel,  especially  in 
its  condescension  to  the  smoking  flax  and  the 
bruised  reed,  were  never  more  beautifully  and 
successfully  depicted.  Mr.  Feeble-mind  is  gently 
carried  up  the  Hill  Difficulty.  At  the  House  of 
the  Interpreter,  when  Mr.  Fearing  stands  with- 
out in  the  cold,  long  time  trembling  and  afraid  to 
knock,  good  father  Honest  is  sent  forth  by  the 
Lord  of  the  Way  to  entreat  him  to  come  in.  In 
the  significant  rooms  of  the  House  of  the  In- 
terpreter, there  are  discovered  new  varieties  to 
please  and  instruct  the  women  and  children,  and 
beautiful  indeed  are  some  of  them.  Also,  the 
Lord  of  the  Way  is  constantly  sending  refresh- 
ments to  his  beloved  ones,  and  he  grants  them  a 


488  CHRISTIANA,    MERCY, 


heavenly  Conductor  to  fight  for  them  all  along 
their  pilgrimage.  Sweet  dreams  wait  on  them, 
the  peace  of  God  keeps  them,  and  when  the  boys 
go  astray  by  eating  of  the  fruit  of  "  Beelzebub's 
orchard,"  the  skill  and  efficacy  of  their  physician 
are  not  greater  than  his  kindness  and  gentleness. 

As  to  the  notable  cheerfulness  of  this  part  of  the 
pilgrimage,  it  is  to  be  remarked,  that  it  springs 
from  the  prevalence  of  Hope  and  Love.  There 
is  such  constant  Christian  benevolence,  such  mu- 
tual humility,  such  each  esteeming  other  better 
than  themselves,  such  watchfulness  for  each 
other's  good,  such  a  Christian  spirit  to  each  other's 
failings,  such  sympathy  in  each  other's  joys  and 
sorrows,  such  unselfish,  unworldly  hearts  are  min- 
gled together,  that  there  can  hardly  be  a  sweeter 
example  of  that  Christian  conversation  which  is 
always  instructive,  because  always  with  grace, 
seasoned  with  salt;  and  always  cheerful,  because 
always  singing  and  making  melody  in  the  heart  to 
the  Lord.  The  terrors  of  the  law  are  not  present 
in  this  second  pilgrimage,  so  much  as  the  consola- 
tions of  the  Gospel;  there  is  constant,  serene 
enjoyment,  and  not  by  any  means  so  many  difficul- 
ties in  the  way  as  there  are  pleasures. 

And  it  is  observable  that  all  the  pilgrimage  wears 
an  aspect  reflected  from  the  gentle  retiring  charac- 
ter of  the  pilgrims.  The  very  dangers  that  were 
so  frightful  in  the  first  part  have  a  gentler  cast, 
when  Christiana  and  Mercy  pass  through  them  ; 
the  very  fiends  lose  something  of  their  ugliness  and 
terror;  in  passing  through  Vanity  Fair  they  meet 
with  some  good  men,  and  are  entertained  with 


AND    THE    CHILDREN.  489 

Christian  hospitality  in  the  house  of  a  true  pilgrim , 
and  when  they  come  to  the  close  of  their  pilgrimage, 
the  River  of  Death  itself,  for  them  and  for  good 
Mr.  Fearing,  becomes  almost  dry.  When  they 
pass  through  the  Valley  of  Humiliation,  it  is  to 
them  a  sweet  and  quiet  place,  because  their  own 
spirit  is  so  sweet  and  contented  ;  no  sight  or  sem- 
blance of  Apollyon  is  there  ;  they  could  live  there 
and  be  happy  all  their  life  long. 

When  they  pass  through  the  Valley  of  the  Sha- 
dow of  Death,  Christ's  rod  and  his  staff  do  so  com- 
fort them,  and  they  so  cling  together  amidst  their 
fears,  and  encourage  each  other  by  their  holy  con- 
versation, that  it  is  no  more  the  dread  valley 
which  Christian  passed  through  alone  ;  it  is  a 
place  where  they  are  bid  stand  and  see  the 
Lord's  deliverance.  Their  company  is  constantly 
increasing  as  they  go,  and  they  are  all  so  ready  to 
bear  one  another's  burdens,  they  obey  so  perfectly 
the  Apostle's  injunction  to  put  on,  as  the  elect  of 
God,  holy  and  beloved,  bowels  of  mercies,  humble- 
ness of  mind,  and  the  gentlest  forbearance,  that 
a  more  alluring  picture  of  the  pilgrimage  could 
scarcely  be  drawn,  and  yet  a  most  perfectly  cor- 
rect one,  wherever  the  blessed  Spirit  of  Christ  pre- 
vails. The  pilgrims  all  act  according  to  this  divine 
rule,  Let  everyone  of  us  please  his  neighbor  for  his 
good  to  edification,  for  even  Christ  pleased  not 
himself. 

All  this  is  delightful.  It  suits  the  pilgrimage 
to  the  walks  of  humble  life,  and  holds  up  an 
example  neither  too  high  for  the  common  multi- 
tude of  Christians,  nor  in  any  way  restricted  to 


490  CHRISTIANA,    MERCY, 

oreat  stations  or  opportunities,  nor  at  all  removed 
from  the  familiar  occasions  and  occurrences  of  our 
every-day  existence.  We  have  here  a  picture  of 
the  Pilgrim  in  society,  and  how  entirely  it  stands 
contrasted  with  the  monkish  and  monastic  piety 
once  in  fashion,  and  now  again  in  some  quarters 
beginning  to  be  revered,  I  hardly  need  say.  There 
is  nothing  severe,  or  stiff,  or  formal  in  it,  nothing 
ascetic  or  morose,  but  every  thing  good-natured 
and  sociable,  joyful,  charitable  and  kind.  As  a 
picture  of  the  Pilgrim  in  domestic  life,  of  the  Pil- 
grim as  the  mother  of  a  family,  and  of  the  Pilgrim, 
though  in  the  world,  yet  living  above  the  world,  the 
description  is  as  pleasing  and  attractive  as  it  is 
true  and  valuable.  It  is  what  the  humblest  minds 
can  understand,  while  the  most  elevated  may  dwell 
upon  it  with  profit  and  delight.  Perhaps  to  the 
minds  of  children,  the  Second  Part  proves  even 
more  attractive  than  the  First ;  a  striking  proof  of 
its  merits,  since  Bunyan  wrote  it  for  childlike  minds 
and  for  the  common  people. 

One  of  its  greatest  beauties  is  its  rich  and  vigor- 
ous delineation  of  character,  and  that  not  merely 
in  the  case  of  Pilgrims,  but  of  opposers  and 
evil-minded  persons.  The  sinful  women  who 
beset  Christiana  and  Mercy  at  the  outset  to  dis- 
suade them  from  becoming  Pilgrims,  are  portraits 
of  the  kind  of  character  which  those  generally  bear 
who  oppose  and  revile  any  that  may  be  fear- 
ing God  and  seeking  the  salvation  of  their  souls. 
Mrs.  Timorous,  Mrs.  Bats-eyes,  Mrs.  Light-mind, 
Mrs.  Inconsiderate,  Mrs.  Know-nothing,  and 
others  still  worse,  make  up  the  character  of 


AND    THE    CHILREN.  491 

those,  who  either  do  not  themselves  become  Pil- 
grims, or  who  endeavour  to  turn  friends  or  ac- 
quaintances from  the  ways  of  righteousness.  But 
Christiana  and  Mercy  are  too  much  in  earnest,  too 
deeply  convinced  of  sin,  and  too  sincerely  bent 
upon  securing  their  salvation  to  be  turned  aside 
in  the  least  by  such  opposition.  So  it  always  is 
where  there  is  sin  in  the  conscience  and  the  mo- 
tion of  God's  Spirit  on  the  heart.  Not  all  that  men 
or  devils  can  do,  not  all  the  power  either  of  temp- 
tation or  persuasion,  or  ridicule,  can  have  the  least 
effect  where  the  conscience  is  once  thoroughly 
awakened  and  burdened  with  a  sense  of  guilt. 
To  be  in  earnest  on  first  setting  out  in  this  pil 
grimage  is  a  great  thing,  and  the  explicit  pro- 
mise of  God  is,  Ye  shall  find  me  when  ye  shall 
search  for  me  with  all  the  heart. 

Next  to  the  characters  of  Christiana  and  Mercy 
stands  that  of  Mr.  Great-heart,  their  conductor,  a 
man  of  great  faith,  a  man  of  the  same  spirit  as 
Christian,  Faithful,  and  rfopeful.  There  is  a 
combination  of  energy  and  gentleness  in  his  cha- 
racter, a  union  of  the  fearless  warrior  and  the 
kind  and  careful  Shepherd.  He  can  fight  with 
Giant  Grim,  can  talk  with  the  children,  can  con- 
descend to  Mr.  Feeble-mind,  can  carry  the  Lambs 
in  his  bosom,  and  gently  lead  those  that  are  with 
young.  His  portrait  is  drawn  with  remarkable 
freedom,  as  a  frank,  fearless,  noble,  open  cha- 
racter, with  neither  severity  nor  prejudice  to  mar 
those  confiding  and  attractive  qualities. 

Mr.   Honest,    Mr.   Valiant-for-truth,    and    Mr. 
Standfast,  are  men    of  a   kindred   greatness   of 
62 


492  CHRISTIANA,    MERCY, 

spirit.  It  is  a  beautiful  incident,  when  they  find 
Mr.  Standfast  at  prayer  on  the  Enchanted  Ground, 
and  the  manner  of  his  introduction  to  our  know- 
ledge suits  well  the  close  of  his  life,  which  was 
very  triumphant.  There  was  a  great  calm  at  that 
time  in  the  River  of  Death,  and  when  Mr.  Stand- 
fast was  about  half-way  over,  he  stood  firm,  and 
spoke  to  those  who  had  accompanied  him  to  the 
bank  of  the  River,  in  language  of  such  glowing 
love  to  Christ,  and  such  unshaken  faith,  as  was 
enough  to  ravish  the  hearts  of  the  survivors  with 
joy  for  the  prospect  of  the  glory  before  him.  The 
deaths  of  the  Pilgrims  in  this  Second  Part  are  all 
either  quiet  or  triumphant,  and  some,  who  had 
passed  all  their  life  under  a  cloud,  beheld  it  break, 
and  the  mists  to  disperse,  and  the  sun  to  shine 
brightly  at  the  last  hour. 

The  character  of  Mr.  Fearing  is  also  an  ad- 
mirable portrait.  In  every  country  where  Pilgrims 
are  sojourning,  there  are  just  such  men  as  he  is  to 
be  met  with  on  the  pilgrimage.  If  we  all  possessed 
Mr.  Fearing's  tenderness  of  conscience,  and  his 
dread  of  sinning  against  God,  it  would  be  well 
for  us  ;  and  yet,  if  all  Christians  were  in  all 
respects  like  him,  there  would  not  be  so  much 
good  done  in  the  world,  though  there  might  be 
less  evil  committed.  Good  Mr.  Fearing  needed 
confidence  in  God,  and  the  spirit  of  adoption  and 
of  freedom  in  his  service.  There  was  in  him  so 
great  a  degree  of  humility  and  self-abasement,  so 
great  a  sense  of  his  own  unworthiness,  that,  be- 
ing unaccompanied  by  a  corresponding  sense  of 
the  free  mercy  of  Christ  to  the  chief  of  sinners, 


AND    THE    CHILDREN.  493 

it  went  over  into  unbelief  and  fear.  He  feared 
to  apply  to  himself  the  promises,  feared  that  he 
was  too  unworthy  even  to  pray  for  an  interest  in 
them,  feared  that  he  should  not  be  accepted  of 
Christ,  feared  to  make  a  profession  of  religion, 
hardly  dared  show  himself  among  Christians,  or 
permit  himself  to  be  considered  as  one  of  them. 
These  fears  and  despondencies  went  so  far  in  his 
mind,  that  they  prevented  a  right  view  of  his  du- 
ties ;  they  made  what  are  the  duties  of  the  Chris- 
tian appear  to  him  as  such  great  privileges,  of 
which  he  was  altogether  unworthy,  that  he  hardly 
dared  take  upon  himself  to  perform  them. 

Yet,  he  was  ready  for  difficulty  and  self-denial, 
and  was  sometimes  prompt  and  bold,  where  Pilgrims 
that  were  stronger  than  he  found  themselves 
drowsy  and  fearful.  The  Hill  Difficulty  he  did  not 
seem  to  mind  at  all,  and  in  Vanity  Fair  his  spirit 
was  so  stirred  within  him  at  the  sins  and  fooleries  of 
the  place,  that  father  Honest  had  much  ado  to  keep 
him  within  the  bounds  of  prudence,  and  feared  he 
would  have  brought  the  whole  rabble  of  the  Fair 
upon  them.  Then  on  the  Enchanted  Ground, 
where  many  are  so  sleepy,  he  was  wakeful  and 
vigilant ;  so  that  he  was  always  giving  good  evi- 
dence to  others  of  being  a  true  child  of  God, 
even  while  he  had  very  little  hope  for  himself, 
and  many,  very  many  fears,  lest  he  should  at  last  be 
refused  admittance  at  the  Gates  of  the  Celestial 
City. 

The  humility  of  Mr.  Fearing  was  good,  and 
a  precious,  rare  grace  it  is  ;  but  it  is  no  part  of 
humility  to  distrust  the  mercy  of  the  Saviour,  or  to 


494  CHRISTIANA,    MERCY, 

shrink  from  active  duty  for  want  of  reliance  on  the 
strength  of  Christ,  for  want  of  resting  on  that  sweet 
promise,  My  grace  is  sufficient  for  thee.  Mr.  Fear- 
ing's  unbelief  was  a  source  of  great  distress  to 
him,  and  deprived  him  of  much  enjoyment  all 
the  way  of  his  pilgrimage.  Persons  like  him, 
though  truly  fearing  God,  often  go  under  a  cloud 
all  their  life  long,  and  sometimes  even  refuse  to 
make  a  profession  of  religion,  and  to  join  them- 
selves with  other  Christians,  because  of  their  pre- 
vailing gloom.  Mr.  Fearing  himself,  though  he 
had  much  comfort  in  the  House  Beautiful,  was 
with  difficulty  persuaded  to  enter.  "  I  got  him  in," 
said  father  Honest,  "  at  the  House  Beautiful,  I 
think  before  he  was  willing;  also  when  he  was  in, 
I  brought  him  acquainted  with  the  damsels  that 
were  of  the  place,  but  he  was  ashamed  to  make 
himself  much  for  company.  He  desired  much 
to  be  alone,  yet  he  always  loved  good  talk,  and 
often  would  get  behind  the  screen  to  hear  it :  he 
also  loved  much  to  see  ancient  things,  and  to  be 
pondering  them  .in  his  mind.  He  told  me  after- 
ward that  he  loved  to  be  in  those  two  houses 
from  which  he  came  last,  to  wit,  at  the  Gate,  and 
that  of  the  Interpreter,  but  that  he  durst  not  be  so 
bold  as  to  ask." 

He  had  much  joy  in  the  Valley  of  Humiliation, 
but  he  was  a  man  of  few  words,  and  had  a  habit 
of  sighing  aloud  in  his  dejection.  He  was  very 
tender  of  sin,  and  so  afraid  of  doing  injuries  to 
others,  that  he  would  often  deny  himself  that 
which  is  lawful,  because  he  would  not  offend. 
This  was  a  very  precious  trait,  but  so  extreme  in 


AND    THE    CHILDREN.  495 

him,  that  by  the  lowness  of  his  spirits  his  life  was 
made  burdensome  to  himself,  and  not  a  little  trou- 
blesome to  others.  They  had  need  of  great  pa- 
tience with  him,  and  tenderness  towards  him.  He 
carried  a  Slough  of  Despond  in  his  mind,  and  was 
always  foreboding  evil  to  himself,  especially  when  he 
saw  the  fall  and  ruin  of  others.  When  they  came 
to  where  the  three  fellows  were  hanged,  he  said  he 
doubted  that  that  would  be  his  end  also  ;  and  he 
was  always  fearing  about  his  acceptance  at  last. 
But  it  is  very  clear  that  he  was  a  person  described 
in  that  passage  where  God  says,  To  this  man  will  I 
look,  even  to  him  that  is  poor,  and  of  a  contrite 
spirit,  and  who  trembleth  at  my  word.  It  is  evi- 
dent also  that  he  would  come  under  the  saying  of 
the  Saviour,  Blessed  are  the  poor  in  spirit,  for 
theirs  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Wherefore,  says 
Bunyan,  the  Lord  of  the  Way  carried  it  wonderfully 
loving  to  him,  for  his  encouragement.  For  thus 
saith  the  high  and  lofty  One,  that  inhabiteth  Eter- 
nity, whose  name  is  Holy,  I  dwell  in  the  high  and 
holy  place,  with  him  that  is  of  a  contrite  and  hum- 
ble spirit,  to  revive  the  spirit  of  the  humble,  and  to 
revive  the  heart  of  the  contrite  ones.  This  charac- 
ter of  good  Mr.  Fearing,  in  the  second  part  of  the 
Pilgrim's  Progress,  stands  in  a  striking  and  instruc- 
tive contrast  with  the  characters  of  Talkative  and 
Ignorance  in  the  First,  as  also  with  the  character 
of  Self-will  as  described  by  father  Honest. 

In  the  pilgrimage  of  the  Second  Part  Bunyan 
has  introduced  a  most  instructive  variety  and 
change  in  his  treatment  of  the  same  subjects  that 
came  under  his  notice  with  Christian  and  Hope- 


496  CHRISTIANA,    MERCY, 

ful.  The  happiness  of  the  Valley  of  Humiliation 
to  a  quiet  and  contented  mind  is  described  with 
great  beauty.  The  timid  Pilgrims  had  daylight 
through  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death,  and 
yet  they  saw  enough  to  convince  them  of  the  ter- 
rors of  that  place,  and  of  the  reality  of  Christian's 
fearful  experience  in  passing  through  it.  The  ugly 
shapes  that  they  saw  were  indistinct,  but  the  rush- 
ing of  the  fiends,  the  roaring  of  flames,  and  the  fire 
and  smoke  of  the  pit,  were  easy  enough  to  be  dis- 
cerned, so  that  the  place  was  a  Vale  of  Horrors 
still.  Among  other  things,  "Mercy,  looking  be- 
hind her,  saw,  as  she  thought,  something  almost 
like  a  lion,  and  it  came  a  great  padding  pace 
after ;  and  it  had  a  hollow  voice  of  roaring ;  and 
at  every  roar  that  it  gave,  it  made  the  Valley  echo, 
and  all  their  hearts  to  ache,  save  the  heart  of  him 
that  was  their  guide.  So  it  came  up ;  and  Mr. 
Great-heart  went  behind,  and  put  the  Pilgrims 
all  before  him.  The  Lion  also  came  on  apace,  and 
Mr.  Great-heart  addressed  him  to  give  him  battle. 
But  when  he  saw  that  it  was  determined  that  re- 
sistance should  be  made,  he  also  drew  back  and 
came  no  farther."  The  Pilgrims  might  have 
thought  of  what  Peter  says  concerning  this  Roar- 
ing Lion,  Whom  resist  steadfast  in  the  faith  ;  and 
also  of  that  of  James,  Resist  the  Devil  and  he  will 
flee  from  you. 

There  is  also  a  very  instructive  variety  in  the 
delineation  of  the  Enchanted  Ground,  a  region 
which  wears  a  very  different  aspect  according  to 
the  varying  condition,  circumstances  and  habits  of 
the  Pilgrims.  Christiana  and  her  party  did  here 


AND    THE  CHILDREN.  497 

encounter  much  mist  and  darkness,  with  mire  un- 
derfoot, and  a  forest  of  briers  and  thorns  entan- 
gling and  painful.  What  made  this  the  more  dan- 
gerous was,  the  alluring  and  refreshing  arbors, 
green,  soft,  and  beautifully  wrought,  where  the 
very  weariness  of  the  Pilgrims  did  urge  them  to 
rest  and  sleep,  though  they  might  never  again 
wake  in  this  world.  It  has  been  thought  that  here, 
are  delineated  the  circumstances  and  temptations 
of  those  Pilgrims  who  are  deeply  engaged  in 
business,  and  perhaps  became  wealthy,  and  are 
ensnared  by  advantageous  offices,  schemes,  and 
worldly  connections,  so  that  they  are  overwhelmed 
by  the  cares  of  life,  the  deceitfulness  of  riches, 
and  the  lusts  of  other  things.  The  arbors  that 
are  prepared  for  them  by  worldly  prosperity,  they 
are  very  apt  to  slumber  in,  to  the  great  detriment 
if  not  ruin  of  their  souls.  Amidst  the  thorns 
and  briers  the  word  of  God  becomes  unfruitful, 
and  in  the  Arbor  it  will  not  take  root.  If  real 
Christians  are  in  this  condition,  and  view  their 
situation  aright,  they  will  be  as  much  troubled  as 
the  Pilgrims  were  on  this  Enchanted  Ground, 
and  will  find  it  full  of  mire,  perplexity  and  vexa- 
tion of  spirit.  But  if  worldly  prosperity  be  hailed 
by  them  for  enjoyment,  as  an  arbor  to  sleep  in, 
instead  of  being  watched  against  as  a  snare,  and 
employed  for  usefulness,  then  they  are  sleepers 
on  the  Enchanted  Ground,  nor  can  any  tell  if 
ever  they  will  awake. 

In  the  midst  of  their  mist  and  darkness  the 
Pilgrims  came  to  a  place  where  a  man  is  apt  to 
lose  his  way.  So  Mr.  Great-heart  struck  a  light 


498  CHRISTIANA,    MERCY, 

and  examined  his  map  ;  and  well  was  it  for  them 
that  he  did  so,  for  just  at  that  point,  a  little  before 
them,  and  that  at  the  end  of  the  cleanest  way  too, 
there  was  a  deep  pit,  none  knows  how  deep,  full  of 
mud  and  mire,  made  there  on  purpose  to  destroy 
the  pilgrims  in.  But  Mr.  Great-heart,  by  narrowly 
consulting  his  map,  with  the  light  that  was  lighted, 
by  taking  heed  to  God's  Word,  with  earnest  prayer 
for  the  teachings  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  discovered  at 
once  what  was  the  right  way,  and  so  they  were 
saved  from  this  danger. 

So  is  the  Word  of  God  a  lamp  unto  our  feet,  and  a 
light  unto  our  paths,  if  we  will  walk  thereby.  And  it 
becomes  us  diligently  to  pray  with  the  Psalmist, 
Open  thou  mine  eyes,  that  I  may  behold  wondrous 
things  out  of  thy  law.  The  Word  of  God  is  a  pre- 
cious, heavenly  map,  in  which  we  have  not  only  the 
right  way,  the  way  of  salvation,  clearly  laid  down,  as 
a  path  that  shineth  more  and  more  unto  the  perfect 
day,  but  also  the  cross-paths  and  the  by-paths,  which 
Satan  and  wicked  men,  and  deceivers,  have  traced 
along  this  pilgrimage,  and  which  they  have  some- 
times made  to  look  so  much  like  the  right  way,  that 
the  Pilgrims  may  easily  be  deceived,  if  they  do  not 
closely  study  this  map,  seeking  at  the  same  time 
the  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  In  a  place  of 
darkness  especially,  like  this  Enchanted  Ground, 
they  must  take  heed  to  the  Word  of  God,  as  to  a 
light  that  shineth  in  a  dark  place,  until  the  day 
dawn,  and  the  day-star  arise  in  their  hearts.  The 
watchful  Pilgrims  did  thus  with  Mr.  Great-heart, 
and  besides,  they  cried  unto  him  that  loveth  Pil- 
grims, that  he  would  enlighten  their  darkness,  and 


AND    THE    CHILDREN.  499 

so  a  wind  speedily  arose  that  drove  away  the  fog, 
and  the  air  became  more  clear. 

This  was  one  of  those  blessed  "gales  of  the 
Spirit,"  that  do  breathe  upon  the  Pilgrims  in  an- 
swer to  prayer ;  and  then,  in  what  a  sweet,  clear 
atmosphere  they  travel  on,  in  a  pure  air,  in  the 
light  of  heaven,  with  all  the  prospect  distinct  and 
fresh  around  them !  Ah,  it  is  not  the  Word  of  God 
alone,  that  we  need,  but  the  Spirit  of  God  to  go 
with  it ;  and  his  precious  influences  and  teachings 
will  surely  be  granted  to  all  who  humbly  seek  for 
them.  There  is  much  meaning  in  these  incidents, 
especially  in  that  point,  that  it  was  the  way  which 
seemed  to  be  the  cleanest,  that  led  in  the  end  to  a 
pit  of  mud  and  mire. 

This  reminds  us  of  the  way  of  the  Flatterer, 
whom  the  Pilgrims,  in  the  First  Part,  met  with, 
and  by  whom  their  faces  were  turned  away  from 
the  Celestial  City,  while  they  seemed  to  them- 
selves to  be  going  directly  towards  it.  Can  any 
thing  be  more  plainly  indicated  by  this  than  that 
pretence  to  sinless,  perfection,  by  which  so  many 
have  been  flattered  and  allured,  and  which  in  so 
many  cases  has  led  directly,  in  the  end,  to  the 
deepest  pollution.  What  seems  the  cleanest  path 
leads  to  the  pit ;  it  leads  Pilgrims  thither  by  pride, 
self-righteousness,  and  the  pretence  of  a  holiness 
superior  to  God's  law,  and  releasing  them  from  its 
obligations.  It  is  not  the  way  of  Christ's  righteous- 
ness, nor  of  reliance  upon  him ;  and  so,  though  it 
may  seem  at  first  to  be  a  morality  and  sanctifica- 
tion  of  the  highest  tone,  it  ends  in  licentiousness. 
The  men  that  devised  this  path,  and  that  lead  un- 

63 


500  CHRISTIANA,  MERCY, 

wary  souls  in  it,  are  described  by  Peter.  "  For 
when  they  speak  great  swelling  words  of  vanity, 
they  allure  through  the  lusts  of  the  flesh,  through 
much  wantonness,  those  that  were  clean  escaped 
from  them,  who  live  in  error.  While  they  promise 
them  liberty,  they  themselves  are  the  servants  of 
corruption,  for  of  whom  a  man  is  overcome,  of  the 
same  is  he  brought  in  bondage." 

It  was  amidst  this  Enchanted  Ground  that  good 
Mr.  Standfast,  whom  the  Pilgrims  there  found 
upon  his  knees,  was  so  hard  beset  and  enticed  by 
Madam  Bubble  ;  and  indeed  it  is  by  her  sorceries 
that  the  ground  itself  is  enchanted.  Madam  Bub- 
ble is  the  world  with  its  allurements  and  vanities  ; 
and  whosoever,  as  Mr.  Great-heart  said,  do  lay 
their  eyes  upon  her  beauty  are  counted  the 
enemies  of  God ;  for  God  hath  said  that  the 
friendship  of  the  world  is  enmity  against  God  ; 
and  he  hath  said  farthermore,  Love  not  the 
world,  nor  the  things  of  the  world  ;  if  any  man 
love  the  world,  the  love  of  the  Father  is  not 
in  him.  So  Mr.  Standfast  did  well  to  betake 
him  to  his  knees,  praying  to  him  that  could  help 
him.  So  if  all  Pilgrims,  when  worldly  proposals 
and  enticements  allure  them,  and  they  feel  the 
love  of  the  world  tempting  them  and  gaining  on 
them,  would  thus  go  to  more  earnest  prayer,  and  be 
made  more  vigilant  against  temptations,  Madam 
Bubble  would  not  gain  so  many  victories. 

Set  your  affections  on  things  above,  and  not  on 
things  on  the  earth.  The  spirit  of  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress  is  every  where  in  admirable  accordance 
with  this  divine  injunction.  There  is  an  incident 


AND    THE    CHILDREN.  501 

recorded  of  Christiana's  boys,  which  very  beauti- 
fully inculcates  an  instructive  lesson  on  this  sub- 
ject, and  shows  Bunyan's  opinion  as  to  the  man- 
ner in  which  Christian  parents  should  educate 
their  children  in  regard  to  the  pleasures  of  the 
world.  There  was,  on  the  other  side  of  the  wall 
that  fenced  in  the  way  of  salvation,  a  garden,  with 
fruit  trees  that  shot  their  branches  over  the  wall ; 
and  the  fruit  being  very  mellow  and  tempting,  and 
hanging  down  into  the  way,  would  often  allure  pas- 
sengers to  pluck  and  eat.  The  boys  did  this,  as 
boys  are  apt  to  do,  and  as  older  boys  had  done  be- 
fore them  ;  and,  though  their  careful  mother  did 
chide  them  for  so  doing,  still  they  went  on. 

Now  this  was  Beelzebub's  orchard,  and  the  fruit 
was  his  fruit;  but  Christiana  at  the  time  only  knew 
that,  being  out  of  the  way  of  salvation,  it  was  none 
of  theirs  ;  for  had  she  known  to  whom  it  belonged, 
she  would  have  been  ready  to  die  with  fear.  The 
fruit  produced  a  serious  illness  in  the  boys,  a  good 
while  after,  which  illness  did  not  show  itself  indeed, 
till  they  had  left  the  house  of  the  Interpreter,  and 
gone  over  the  Hill  Difficulty,  arid  dwelt  some  time 
in  the  House  Beautiful ;  and  then  Matthew,  the 
eldest  boy,  who  had  eaten  the  fruit  against  the  ad- 
vice of  his  mother,  fell  grievously  sick. 

Now  when  Christiana  learned  from  the  Physician 
that  it  was  Beelzebub's  fruit  that  Matthew  had 
eaten,  she  was  sore  afraid,  and  wept  bitterly  over 
her  own  carelessness,  as  well  as  her  boy's  naughti- 
ness. And  ever  will  the  Christian  mother  have  to  be- 
wail in  her  children  the  mistakes  into  which,  through 
carelessness  and  want  of  prayer,  she  may  have 


502  CHRISTIANA,    MERCY, 

fallen,  in  their  education,  and  the  improper  indul- 
gences and  amusements,  in  which,  through  a  vain 
fondness  to  be  fashionable,  or  through  the  example  of 
worldly  families  and  friends,  she  may  have  allowed 
her  children.  There  are  pleasures,  amusements, 
and  gratifications,  which  are  so  thoroughly  and 
solely  worldly,  so  entirely  on  the  other  side  of  the 
wall  of  salvation,  that  they  must  be  considered  as 
belonging  to  Beelzebub's  orchard,  and  therefore 
the  Pilgrims  and  their  families  should  have  nothing 
to  do  with  them.  Nevertheless,  the  fruit  hangs 
over  so  temptingly  into  the  Pilgrim's  way,  and  so 
many  are  in  the  habit  of  considering  Beelzebub's 
mellow  apples  as  innocent  amusements,  that  many 
Pilgrim  families  do  partake  of  them,  to  the  injury 
of  the  cause  of  Christ,  and  to  their  own  great  spiri- 
tual harm.  There  is  decision  as  well  as  affectionate 
kindness  needed  in  every  Christian  parent,  to  keep 
his  children  from  the  fruit  of  those  trees  that  grow 
on  Beelzebub's  side  of  the  wall. 

It  is  very  instructive  to  see  how  long  after  the 
fruit  was  taken,  the  evil  broke  out  in  Matthew's 
system.  Sin  may  be  carelessly  or  wilfully  commit- 
ted, and  yet  at  the  time  the  conscience  may  be 
blinded  or  quiet  in  regard  to  it,  even  with  those  who 
are  true  believers  ;  but  such  sin  may  be  the  cause 
of  great  darkness,  discouragement  and  distress, 
when  the  conscience,  though  late,  is  made  to  feel 
it ;  and  it  may  be  the  cause  of  the  withdrawal  of 
the  consolations  of  God's  Spirit,  and  the  cause  of 
great  gloom  in  the  soul,  even  while  the  sin  is  not 
remembered,  and  the  believer  does  not  know  why 
God  is  contending  with  him.  In  such  a  case  the 


AND  THE  CHILDREN.  503 

Pilgrims  must  say  with  Jeremiah,  Let  us  search 
and  try  our  ways,  and  tarn  again  to  the  Lord. 

The  skilful  Physician  in  this  allegory  proposed 
such  questions  to  Matthew  and  his  mother,  that  they 
soon  discovered  the  cause  of  his  illness,  and  when 
the  cause  was  known,  then  by  the  medicines  of 
Christ,  by  the  blood  of  Christ,  with  the  tears  of  faith 
and  repentance,  the  cure  was  easy.  But  concealed 
sin  must  sooner  or  later  work  distress  in  the  con- 
science, and  so  must  every  sinful  habit,  and  every 
wrong  worldly  indulgence,  however  it  may  have 
been  pleaded  for  and  allowed  under  the  guise  of  an 
innocent  gratification.  Forbidden  fruit  is  danger- 
ous fruit,  and  works  ruin,  whether  children  take 
it,  or  grown  people.  The  heart  of  persons  who  live 
upon  it  becomes,  in  Bunyan's  expressive  phrase, 
good  for  nothing  but  to  be  tinder  for  the  devil's  tin- 
der-box. Just  so  combustible  are  the  passions  even 
of  children,  where  sin  is  not  restrained. 

There  are  two  characteristics  that  reign  both  in 
the  First  and  Second  Parts  of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress ; 
the  most  important,  and  the  one  which  is  diffused 
through  the  whole  work,  constituting  its  spirit,  and 
pervading  it  like  a  warm,  clear,  sunny  atmosphere, 
is  the  love  of  Christ  and  the  Cross.  This  was  the 
grand  trait  in  Bunyan's  Christian  character,  and  all 
his  writings  are  deeply  penetrated  with  it.  The 
blood  of  the  slain  Lamb  is  every  where  present ; 
this  is  the  precious  hue  that  suffuses  the  work,  and 
gives  to  all  its  colors  such  depth,  such  power  and 
richness.  The  heart  of  the  work  is  Christ;  Christ's 
love,  Christ's  atoning  sacrifice,  Christ's  righteous- 
ness, Christ's  precious  intercession,  Christ's  meek- 


504  CHRISTIANA,    MERCY, 

ness  and  gentleness,  Christ's  ever-present  grace, 
Christ's  prevailing  merits,  Christ  the  victory  over 
sin,  Christ  our  wisdom,  righteousness,  sanctifica- 
tion  and  redemption.  This  secures  to  the  book 
the  ever-present  influences  of  the  Holy  Spirit ; 
this  makes  it  a  stream  of  the  Water  of  Life,  clear 
as  crystal,  flowing  through  the  world ;  this  makes 
it  a  book  beloved  by  the  heart  of  the  Pilgrim,  just 
in  proportion  as  every  thought  and  feeling  are 
brought  into  captivity  to  the  love  of  Christ. 

The  second  reigning  trait  of  the  whole  work  is 
its  sober,  practical  and  affectionate  wisdom.  It  is 
the  wisdom  that  cometh  from  above,  pure  and 
peaceable,  gentle  and  easy  to  be  entreated,  full  of 
mercy  and  of  good  fruits,  without  partiality  and 
without  hypocrisy.  The  views  of  the  Christian 
life  here  inculcated  are  judicious ;  its  trials  and 
its  dangers  not  at  all  concealed,  yet  never  over- 
rated ;  its  enjoyments  tinged  with  a  sober  colour- 
ing, though  rich  ;  the  King's  highway  often  rough 
and  beset  with  difficulties,  yet  passing  through 
scenes  of  inexpressible  loveliness,  and  provided 
here  and  there  with  deep-springing  wells  of  com- 
fort. The  practical  spirit  of  this  book  is  of  indes- 
cribable value  arid  importance.  An  allegory  like 
this,  one  might  suppose,  would  make  rather  an 
imaginative  than  a  working  Pilgrim ;  and  in  some 
hands  it  would  have  tended  to  produce  a  dreaming 
mystic,  instead  of  a  sober,  experienced  Christian. 
But  there  is  hardly  a  book  of  greater  practical 
wisdom  in  the  world,  and  certainly,  with  all  its 
imagination,  no  more  correct  map  of  the  Christian 
Pilgrimage.  Its  wisdom  is  that  of  dearly  bought 


AND    THE    CHILREN.  505 

experience,  heaven-taught  and  heaven-descended. 
Along  with  this  wisdom  there  mingles  at  the 
same  time,  a  vein  of  the  purest  most  genuine 
cheerfulness  and  humor.  It  is  as  a  part  of  that  wis- 
dom, that  Bunyan  has  introduced  the  domestic 
constitution  so  beautifully,  so  happily,  so  sacredly, 
in  the  course  of  the  Pilgrimage.  It  has  made  his 
Pilgrims  marry  and  give  in  marriage,  in  accordance 
with  the  inspired  declaration  that  marriage  is 
honorable  in  all,  and  the  bed  undefiled,  and  in 
opposition  to  that  asceticism  and  fanaticism  of 
celibacy,  which  would  proclaim  a  single  state  as 
the  holiest,  and  which  in  the  Romish  Church  has 
wrought  such  a  frightful  career  of  abominations. 
But  Bunyan  also  makes  his  Pilgrims  marry  accord- 
ing to  the  Apostolic  injunction,  only  in  the  Lord. 

In  the  course  of  this  delineation  in  the  Second 
Part  there  occurs  a  passage,  which  for  exquisite 
humor,  quiet  satire  and  naturalness  in  the  de- 
velopment of  character,  is  scarcely  surpassed  in 
the  language.  It  is  the  account  of  the  courtship 
between  Mercy  and  Mr.  Brisk,  which  took  place  at 
the  House  Beautiful. 

"  Now  by  that  these  Pilgrims  had  been  in  this 
place  a  week,  Mercy  had  a  visiter  that  pretended 
some  good  will  unto  her,  and  his  name  was  Mr. 
Brisk,  a  man  of  some  breeding,  and  that  pretended 
to  religion  ;  but  a  man  that  stuck  very  close  to 
the  world.  So  he  came  once  or  twice  or  more  to 
Mercy,  and  offered  love  unto  her.  Now  Mercy 
was  of  a  fair  countenance,  and  therefore  the  more 
alluring.  Her  mind  also  was  to  be  always  busying 
of  herself  in  doing  ;  for  when  she  had  nothing  to 


506  CHRISTIANA,    MERCY, 

do  for  herself,  she  would  be  making  of  hose  and  gar- 
ments for  others,  and  would  bestow  them  upon  them 
that  had  need.  And  Mr.  Brisk,  not  knowing  how 
or  where  she  disposed  of  what  she  made,  seemed 
to  be  greatly  taken,  for  that  he  found  her  never 
idle.  I  will  warrant  her  a  good  housewife,  quoth 
he  to  himself." 

Mercy  then  revealed  the  business  to  the  maidens 
that  were  of  the  house,  and  inquired  of  them  con- 
cerning him,  for  they  did  know  him  better  than  she. 
So  they  told  her  that  he  was  a  very  busy  young 
man,  and  one  that  pretended  to  religion  ;  but  was, 
as  they  feared,  a  stranger  to  the  power  of  that 
which  is  good. 

"  Nay,  then,  said  Mercy,  I  will  look  no  more  on 
him  ;  for  I  purpose  never  to  have  a  clog  to  my  soul. 

"  Prudence  then  replied  that  there  needed  no 
great  matter  of  discouragement  to  be  given  to  him  ; 
for  continuing  so,  as  she  had  begun,  to  do  for  the 
poor,  would  quickly  cool  his  courage. 

"  So  the  next  time  he  comes,  he  finds  her  at  her 
old  work,  a  making  of  things  for  the  poor.  Then 
said  he,  What,  always  at  it  ?  Yes,  said  she,  either 
for  myself  or  for  others.  And  what  canst  thou 
earn  a  day?  quoth  he.  I  do  these  things,  said 
she,  that  I  may  be  rich  in  good  works,  laying  a 
good  foundation  against  the  time  to  come,  that  I 
may  lay  hold  of  eternal  life.  Why,  prithee,  what 
dost  thou  do  with  them?  said  he.  Clothe  the 
naked,  said  she.  With  that  his  countenance  fell. 
So  he  forbore  to  come  at  her  again.  And  when 
he  was  asked  the  reason  why,  he  said  that  Mercy 
was  a  pretty  lass,  but  troubled  with  ill  conditions." 


AND    THE    CHILDREN.  507 

Not  a  word  of  comment  is  necessary  on  this  ex- 
quisitely humorous  passage. 

The  snatches  of  poetry  in  this  Second  Part,  are 
certainly  superior  to  those  which  are  sprinkled  in 
the  pages  of  the  First.  The  song  of  Mr.  Valiant- 
for-truth  is  so  much  after  the  manner  of  our  old 
English  Melodists,  and  so  valuable  in  itself,  that  it 
would  make  a  gem,  even  in  the  pages  of  Shak- 
speare.  There  is  an  old  melody  to  which  this 
poetry  is  set,  which  has  been  said  likewise  to  have 
been  composed  by  Bunyan  ;  how  true  this  may  be, 
we  know  not ;  but  the  spirit  of  the  music  is  in  ex- 
cellent harmony  with  the  stanzas,  the  melody  be- 
ing such  an  one  as  any  cheerful,  resolute  pilgrim, 
fond  of  music,  might  hum  to  himself  upon  his  jour 
ney,  and  greatly  solace  himself  thereby. 

Who  would  true  valor  see, 

Let  him  come  hither ; 
One  here  will  constant  be, 

Come  wind,  come  weather. 
There's  no  discouragement 
Shall  make  him  once  relent 
His  first  avowed  intent 

To  be  a  Pilgrim. 

Who  so  beset  him  round 

With  dismal  stories, 
Do  but  themselves  confound  ; 

His  strength  the  more  is. 
No  Lion  can  him  fright, 
He'll  with  a  Giant  fight, 
But  he  will  have  a  right 

To  be  a  Pilgrim. 

Hobgoblin  nor  foul  fiend 

Can  daunt  his  spirit ; 
He  knows  he  at  the  end 

Shall  life  inherit. 
Then,  fancies,  fly  away ; 
He'll  not  fear  what  men  say, 
He'll  labor  night  and  day 

To  be  a  Pilgrim. 

64 


508  CHRISTIANA,    MERCY, 

This  song  brings  into  view  another  reigning  trait 
of  the  pilgrimage  as  depicted  by  Banyan,  which  is 
the  passionate  intensity  and  steadfastness  of  pur- 
pose requisite  for  its  successful  pursuit.  In  the  ex- 
perience of  Bunyan's  Pilgrims,  especially  the  most 
faithful  among  them,  there  is  realized  that  holy 
thirsting  for  God,  and  that  earnest  effort  after  him, 
of  which  the  Psalmist  speaks  in  so  many  and  such 
striking  passages,  but  especially  in  the  63d  and 
42d  Psalms.  "  My  soul  followeth  hard  after  thee  ; 
thy  right  hand  upholdeth  me.  As  the  hart  panteth 
after  the  water-brooks,  so  panteth  my  soul  after 
thee,  O  God  !" 

The  work  of  finding  God  is  justly  represented 
in  this  pilgrimage  as  being  great  and  arduous  ;  and 
the  Pilgrims  are  represented  as  pursuing  it  with  a 
single  eye,  and  a  holy  intensity  of  purpose.  If  a 
Christian  would  be  at  all  successful  in  this  great 
pursuit,  there  must  be  such  a  habit  of  intensity 
and  perseverance  ;  for  God  hath  said,  Ye  shall 
seek  me,  and  ye  shall  find  me,  when  ye  shall  search 
for  me  with  all  the  heart.  In  this  there  is  brought 
to  view  what  ought  to  be  the  passion  of  the  mind, 
its  daily,  unceasing,  unbroken  effort,  the  habitual 
bent  of  its  energies,  the  struggle  of  its  powers. 
This  is  just  as  necessary  to  a  Christian's  success 
in  the  Divine  Life,  as  enthusiasm  in  any  path  of 
science,  or  of  acquisition  is  necessary  to  success  in 
the  pursuits  of  this  life. 

But  it  is  not  so  common  among  Christians  as  it 
ought  to  be.  In  Bunyan's  own  experience,  and  in 
that  of  his  favorite  Pilgrims,  there  was  a  holy 
fixedness  of  purpose,  and  a  fervent  breathing  of 


AND    THE    CHILDREN.  509 

the  soul  after  the  accomplishment  of  that  purpose, 
and  a  perpetual  return  of  the  soul  with  un- 
diminished  freshness  to  its  work,  which  are 
rarely  beheld  in  exercise,  and  in  the  want  of  which 
it  is  to  be  "feared  that  the  piety  of  our  own  age 
is  greatly  defective.  As  an  earthly  enthusiasm  it 
exists  in  men  of  the  world  ;  in  the  pursuits  of  this 
world  you  may  find  it ;  and  the  existence  or  the 
absence  of  this  persevering  intensity  of  effort  is 
the  great  cause  of  the  different  success  which  men 
meet  with  in  the  pursuits  of  life. 

The  children  of  this  world  are  wiser  in  their 
generation  than  the  children  of  light.  And  it  is 
precisely  this  enthusiasm  of  soul,  exhibited  by  men 
who  have  become  great  in  particular  occupations 
in  this  world,  that  we  speak  of,  as  essential  to  suc- 
cess in  the  search  after  God  and  eternal  greatness. 
Look  over  the  life,  for  example,  of  a  man  like  Sir 
Isaac  Newton,  or  Sir  Humphrey  Davy,  and  what 
intense  devotion  do  you  find  to  their  particular  pur- 
suits. Day  and  night  the  thirst  for  knowledge  oc- 
cupies their  souls.  They  despise  weariness,  temp- 
tations, the  seductive  allurements  of  the  senses, 
even  the  natural  calls  of  appetite.  They  undergo 
what  in  the  pursuits  of  religion  would  be  accounted 
martyrdom,  but  with  their  enthusiastic  love  of 
science,  it  is  nothing,  it  is  pleasure.  They  en- 
counter dangers,  and  subject  themselves  to  hazard- 
ous experiments  and  painful  toils,  all  submitted  to 
with  ease  and  even  delight,  in  prosecution  of  the 
ruling  passion  of  the  soul,  the  business  to  which 
the  whole  energies  of  the  being  have  been  devoted 
with  so  much  enthusiasm,  that  it  has  become  a 
second  life  and  nature. 


510  CHRISTIANA,    MERCY, 

Now  it  is  just  this  which  is  needed  in  the  effort 
after  God.  It  is  this  turning  of  the  whole  passion  and 
power  of  the  soul  into  the  business  of  seeking  God. 
ft  is  this  making  an  acquaintance  with  God,  and  a 
greater  love  of  him,  and  a  greater  knowledge  of 
him,  the  passion  and  the  business  of  existence.  It 
is  this  passionate  pursuit  after  holiness,  never  in- 
termitted, but  returned  to  with  the  recurrence  of 
each  day,  and  maintained  with  an  habitual  perseve- 
rance of  feeling  and  effort,  that  at  length  shall  wear 
the  channels  of  blessedness  so  deep  in  the  soul, 
that  all  its  energies  of  sensibility  and  activity  shall 
pour  into  them  ;  that  shall  make  the  hungering 
and  thirsting  after  righteousness  as  inseparable  a 
movement  of  the  daily  tide  of  life,  as  undying  a 
passion  of  the  heart's  daily  experience,  as  is  any 
form  whatever  of  this  world's  idolatry  in  the  souls 
of  its  worshippers. 

It  is  this  which  was  David's  experience  when 
his  soul  was  following  hard  after  God.  It  is  this 
to  which  he  refers  when  he  breaks  out,  As  the 
hart  panteth  after  the  water-brooks,  so  panteth 
my  soul  after  thee,  O  God  !  It  is  this  which  has 
constituted  the  secret  of  the  eminent  attainments 
of  all  eminent  saints,  in  the  Scriptures  and  in  all 
history.  It  is  this  which  feeds  the  secret  fire  of 
men's  souls,  who  have  still  sought  God  amidst  ter- 
rors, sufferings  and  deaths.  It  is  this  which  has 
constituted  the  secret  power  of  assurance  ;  not  so 
much  the  consciousness  or  the  belief  of  holiness 
already  attained,  as  the  experience  of  this  inex- 
tinguishable, unquenchable  thirst,  and  daily  intense 
effort  of  the  soul  after  it.  It  is  this,  which  in  an 


AND    THE    CHILDREN.  511 

eminent  degree  is  its  own  reward,  and  its  own 
blessedness.  It  fulfils  in  its  own  exercise  the  pro- 
mises of  God  before  hand.  It  is  a  well  of  water, 
springing  up  to  everlasting  life.  It  brings  God 
and  heaven  near  to  the  soul  day  by  day,  in  the  very 
intensity  of  the  effort  after  him.  It  is  accompanied 
with  a  great  promise,  that  the  soul,  so  seeking  him, 
shall  find  him,  that  he  that  thus  hungers  and  thirsts 
after  righteousness,  shall  be  filled. 

And  this  promise  is  fulfilling  with  every  increase 
in  the  earnestness  of  the  soul's  desires  after  God, 
with  every  addition  to  the  power  of  that  passion, 
and  the  immutability  of  that  habit,  which  binds  the 
soul  to  the  business  of  seeking  God.  The  very 
intensity  of  this  search  after  God  is  an  element  of 
power.  It  puts  every  thing  else  at  a  distance, 
every  interference  aside,  every  earthly  glory  into 
darkness.  Its  keen  gaze  sees  God,  and  all  things 
else  are  shadows.  It  gives  great  superiority  to  the 
world  and  to  temptation,  great  clearness  of  view, 
great  power  to  faith,  great  nearness  to  the  unseen 
world,  a  great  victory  over  things  seen  and  tempo- 
ral. It  touches  all  experience  with  glory,  converts 
all  events  into  ministers  of  grace  and  goodness, 
making  even  sore  trials  the  means  of  still  greater 
nearness  to  God,  and  earthly  disappointments  but 
so  many  steps  in  the  ladder,  up  which  the  soul  is 
mounting  to  its  Maker. 

The  positive  happiness  of  such  a  life  is  greater 
than  the  Christian  in  the  ordinary  frame  of  custom 
can  conceive.  The  very  effort  of  thus  seeking 
after  God  is  itself  positive  blessedness.  And 
we  would  ask  any  Christian,  and  especially  any 


512  CHRISTIANA,    MERCY, 

one  just  setting  out  in  the  Christian  life,  whose 
habits  for  life  therefore  are  now  forming,  Had  you 
not  better  be  employed  in  such  an  effort,  even 
though  you  seem  to  fail,  even  though  your  soul  be 
much  discouraged  by  the  way,  and  you  seem  to 
meet  with  enemies,  of  which  others  are  entirely 
unconscious?  Would  not  that  life  be  infinitely 
happier,  which  is  so  spent  ?  If  you  do  not  meet 
with  those  enemies,  it  is  not  because  they  do  not 
exist,  and  if  you  be  at  peace  without  this  holy 
effort  after  God,  it  is  not  because  these  enemies 
are  overcome,  or  that  sin  is  dead  within  you,  or 
that  your  vision  is  bright  toward  heaven.  It  is 
rather  because  sin  is  alive,  and  you  know  it  not, 
or  care  very  little  for  it ;  it  is  because  sensibility 
is  dead,  and  not  sin  ;  it  is  not  because  you  are 
really  secure  that  enemies  do  not  trouble  you,  but 
because  they  are  secure  of  you,  and  quietly  waiting 
till  they  shall  have  full  possession  of  you.  Now 
again  in  regard  to  this  pilgrimage,  it  is  clear  that 
there  is  great  blessedness  in  this  search  after  God, 
and  certainly  no  blessedness  without  it,  although 
in  it  the  earnest  pilgrim  may  see  his  sins  and  his 
enemies  with  a  clearness,  of  which  they  that  are  at 
ease  can  have  no  conception,  and  though  he  may 
have  to  pass  through  conflicts,  which  they  that  sleep 
know  nothing  of.  Better  by  far  to  have  these  con- 
flicts now,  and  rest  and  triumph  at  the  end,  than 
rest  and  peace  now,  and  a  conflict  with  sin  and  its 
consequences  forever  and  ever.  It  were  better  to 
be  all  one's  lifetime  in  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow 
of  Death,  to  emerge  from  it  into  light  and  life 
eternal,  than  to  be  walking  in  a  false  light  here,  to 
be  followed  by  the  blackness  of  darkness  forever. 


AND    THE  CHILDREN.  513 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  way  of  this  pilgri- 
mage is  a  straight  and  narrow  way.  The  difficul- 
ties and  hardships,  and  terrors,  have  not  been  mag- 
nified in  the  Allegory  of  Bunyan.  It  is  a  strictly 
scriptural  representation.  Nor  can  it  be  denied 
that  the  world  spreadeth  in  our  way  many  alluring 
baits,  and  that  the  sense  hath  for  the  time  ex- 
quisite and  intoxicating  delights.  So  that  in  be- 
coming a  pilgrim,  one  seems  to  turn  his  back  upon 
a  present  and  positive  enjoyment,  and  to  choose 
self-denial,  painfulness  and  sorrow.  But  at  the 
very  outset  we  are  met  by  the  tremendous  question, 
What  shall  it  profit  a  man,  if  he  gain  the  whole 
world  and  lose  his  own  soul  1 

We  cannot  unmake  our  being  or  annihilate  its 
conditions.  We  must  die  and  die  only  to  be  im- 
mortal. If  while  we  live  we  live  to  the  world, 
when  we  come  to  die  and  leave  the  world,  we  shall 
die  to  all  blessedness.  But  if  while  we  live,  we 
die  to  the  world,  then  when  we  come  to  die  and 
leave  the  world,  we  shall  live  to  blessedness  perfect 
and  eternal.  So  let  the  world  be  as  pleasant  as  it 
may,  and  the  pilgrimage  as  toilsome  and  forbidding 
as  it  may,  in  choosing  between  them  we  must  re- 
member, we  are  choosing  between  Heaven  and 
Hell.  If  we  would  laugh  now,  we  must  do  it  at 
the  cost  of  weeping  forever  ;  if  we  would  laugh 
and  rejoice  forever,  we  must  consent  to  be  weeping 
pilgrims  now.  Now  what  will  it  profit  you  to  gain 
the  whole  world  at  the  cost  of  your  soul  ? 

But  when  the  choice  is  once  made  under  the 
strong  principle  of  duty,  and  the  conviction  of 
substantial  and  eternal  gain  ;  and  the  man  with 


514    CHRISTIANA,    MERCY,    AND    THE    CHILDREN. 

violent  resistance  shuts  out  the  alluring  voices  of 
the  world,  by  putting  his  fingers  in  his  ears,  and 
its  alluring  prospects  by  turning  his  back  upon 
them,  and  runs  for  the  entrance  into  the  narrow 
way,  crying  out  Life  !  Life  !  Eternal  Life  ! — then 
there  springs  up  the  excitement,  enthusiasm  arid 
joy  of  a  new  and  glorious  interest.  What  has  he 
to  do  now  1  To  become  holy,  like  God  ;  to  lead  the 
life  of  Love,  like  God  in  Christ :  to  win  heaven 
forever  and  ever  I  Having  turned  from  the  world, 
its  fascinations  depart  from  his  soul  like  a  light 
vapour  and  vanish  into  nothingness.  And  fixing 
now  all  the  energies  and  insight  of  his  being  upon 
the  work  and  prospects  before  him,  the  life  of  the 
pilgrim  and  the  crowning  rewards  stand  out  con- 
tinually in  increasing  beauty  and  glory.  And  thus 
is  he  more  and  more  conformed  to  that  which  he 
seeketh  after ;  and  gaineth  even  in  the  winning  of 
heavenly  blessedness,  a  taste  of  it,  which  maketh 
the  keenest  delight  of  the  world  appear  utterly  in- 
sipid. The  pilgrim  has  a  precious  reward  as  he 
goes  along  ;  it  meets  him  at  the  cross,  at  the  hill  of 
difficulty,  in  the  valley  of  humiliation,  in  the  valley 
of  the  shadow  of  death,  it  meets  him  most 
abundantly  when  to  the  world  he  appears  most 
wretched  ;  it  is  an  inward  light  and  love  which 
enables  him  to  see,  and  draws  him  towards  the 
gate  of  heaven — it  is  the  promise  and  the  earnest 
of  the  world  to  come.  And  when  at  last  his  flesh 
and  heart  faileth,  then  God  becomes  the  strength 
of  his  heart  and  his  portion  forever. 


\J  r 


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